Why Have You Rejected Us Forever?

(Psalm 79:1-13; Jeremiah 52:1-11)

1{An instruction: of Asaph.} Why, O God, hast thou cast off for ever? [why] doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?

2Remember thine assembly, which thou hast purchased of old, which thou hast redeemed [to be] the portion of thine inheritance, this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.

3Lift up thy steps unto the perpetual desolations: everything in the sanctuary hath the enemy destroyed.

4Thine adversaries roar in the midst of thy place of assembly; they set up their signs [for] signs.

5[A man] was known as he could lift up axes in the thicket of trees;

6And now they break down its carved work altogether, with hatchets and hammers.

7They have set on fire thy sanctuary, they have profaned the habitation of thy name to the ground.

8They said in their heart, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all God's places of assembly in the land.

9We see not our signs; there is no more any prophet, neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.

10How long, O God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy contemn thy name for ever?

11Why withdrawest thou thy hand, and thy right hand? [pluck it] out of thy bosom: consume [them].

12But God is my king of old, accomplishing deliverances in the midst of the earth.

13*Thou* didst divide the sea by thy strength; thou didst break the heads of the monsters on the waters:

14*Thou* didst break in pieces the heads of leviathan, thou gavest him to be meat to those that people the desert.

15*Thou* didst cleave fountain and torrent, *thou* driedst up ever-flowing rivers.

16The day is thine, the night also is thine; *thou* hast prepared the moon and the sun:

17*Thou* hast set all the borders of the earth; summer and winter -- *thou* didst form them.

18Remember this, that an enemy hath reproached Jehovah, and a foolish people have contemned thy name.

19Give not up the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the wild beast; forget not the troop of thine afflicted for ever.

20Have respect unto the covenant; for the dark places of the earth are full of the dwellings of violence.

21Oh let not the oppressed one return ashamed; let the afflicted and needy praise thy name.

22Rise up, O God, plead thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee all the day;

23Forget not the voice of thine adversaries: the tumult of those that rise up against thee ascendeth continually.