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!