44:1 With our own ears we have heard it, O God--- our ancestors have told us about it, about the great things you did in their time, in the days of long ago: |
44:2 how you yourself drove out the heathen and established your people in their land; how you punished the other nations and caused your own to prosper. |
44:3 Your people did not conquer the land with their swords; they did not win it by their own power; it was by your power and your strength, by the assurance of your presence, which showed that you loved them. |
44:4 You are my king and my God; you give victory to your people, |
44:5 and by your power we defeat our enemies. |
44:6 I do not trust in my bow or in my sword to save me; |
44:7 but you have saved us from our enemies and defeated those who hate us. |
44:8 We will always praise you and give thanks to you forever. |
44:9 But now you have rejected us and let us be defeated; you no longer march out with our armies. |
44:10 You made us run from our enemies, and they took for themselves what was ours. |
44:11 You allowed us to be slaughtered like sheep; you scattered us in foreign countries. |
44:12 You sold your own people for a small price as though they had little value. |
44:13 Our neighbors see what you did to us, and they mock us and laugh at us. |
44:14 You have made us a joke among the nations; they shake their heads at us in scorn. |
44:15 I am always in disgrace; I am covered with shame |
44:16 from hearing the sneers and insults of my enemies and those who hate me. |
44:17 All this has happened to us, even though we have not forgotten you or broken the covenant you made with us. |
44:18 We have not been disloyal to you; we have not disobeyed your commands. |
44:19 Yet you left us helpless among wild animals; you abandoned us in deepest darkness. |
44:20 If we had stopped worshiping our God and prayed to a foreign god, |
44:21 you would surely have discovered it, because you know our secret thoughts. |
44:22 But it is on your account that we are being killed all the time, that we are treated like sheep to be slaughtered. |
44:23 Wake up, Lord! Why are you asleep? Rouse yourself ! Don't reject us forever! |
44:24 Why are you hiding from us? Don't forget our suffering and trouble! |
44:25 We fall crushed to the ground; we lie defeated in the dust. |
44:26 Come to our aid! Because of your constant love save us! |