4Your foes have roared within your holy place;
    they set up their emblems there.
5At the upper entrance they hacked
    the wooden trellis with axes.[a]
6And then, with hatchets and hammers,
    they smashed all its carved work.
7They set your sanctuary on fire;
    they desecrated the dwelling place of your name,
    bringing it to the ground.
8They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;
    they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

9We do not see our emblems;
    there is no longer any prophet,
    and there is no one among us who knows how long.
10How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
    Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
11Why do you hold back your hand;
    why do you keep your hand in[b] your bosom?

12Yet God my King is from of old,
    working salvation in the earth.
13You divided the sea by your might;
    you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.
14You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
    you gave him as food[c] for the creatures of the wilderness.
15You cut openings for springs and torrents;
    you dried up ever-flowing streams.
16Yours is the day, yours also the night;
    you established the luminaries[d] and the sun.
17You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;
    you made summer and winter.

18Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,
    and an impious people reviles your name.
19Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild animals;
    do not forget the life of your poor forever.

20Have regard for your[e] covenant,
    for the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence.
21Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame;
    let the poor and needy praise your name.
22Rise up, O God, plead your cause;
    remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.
23Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
    the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.