Oh, That My People Would Listen to Me

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith.1 Of Asaph.

¹Sing aloud to God our strength;

shout for joy to the God of Jacob!

²Raise a song; sound the tambourine,

the sweet lyre with the harp.

³Blow the trumpet at the new moon,

at the full moon, on our feast day.

⁴For it is a statute for Israel,

a rule2 of the God of Jacob.

⁵He made it a decree in Joseph

when he went out over3 the land of Egypt.

I hear a language I had not known:

⁶“I relieved your4 shoulder of the burden;

your hands were freed from the basket.

⁷In distress you called, and I delivered you;

I answered you in the secret place of thunder;

I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah

⁸Hear, O my people, while I admonish you!

O Israel, if you would but listen to me!

⁹There shall be no strange god among you;

you shall not bow down to a foreign god.

¹⁰I am the Lord your God,

who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

¹¹“But my people did not listen to my voice;

Israel would not submit to me.

¹²So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,

to follow their own counsels.

¹³Oh, that my people would listen to me,

that Israel would walk in my ways!

¹⁴I would soon subdue their enemies

and turn my hand against their foes.

¹⁵Those who hate the Lord would cringe toward him,

and their fate would last forever.

¹⁶But he would feed you5 with the finest of the wheat,

and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

Rescue the Weak and Needy

A Psalm of Asaph.

¹God has taken his place in the divine council;

in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

²“How long will you judge unjustly

and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

³Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;

maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

⁴Rescue the weak and the needy;

deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

⁵They have neither knowledge nor understanding,

they walk about in darkness;

all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

⁶I said, “You are gods,

sons of the Most High, all of you;

⁷nevertheless, like men you shall die,

and fall like any prince.”1

⁸Arise, O God, judge the earth;

for you shall inherit all the nations!