Book Two (Psalms 42-72) "Concerning Israel as a Nation"
A Psalm of Asaph.
1: The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
2: Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.
3: Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
4: He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.
5: Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
6: And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.
7: Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.
8: I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.
9: I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.
10: For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
11: I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.
12: If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.
13: Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
14: Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:
15: And call upon me in the day of trouble:
I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
16: But unto the wicked God saith,
What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?
17: Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee.
18: When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.
19: Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit.
20: Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother's son.
21: These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.
22: Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.
23: Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me:
and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.
To the chief Musician.
subtitle To the chief Musician. See The Companion Bible, Appendix 64.