Psalms 44 God's people remember ancient favors and pray for deliverance from present evils

 Psalms 44

God's people remember ancient favors and pray for deliverance from present evils

1 We have heard with our ears, O God, and our fathers have told us, what deeds you did in their days, in the days of old.

2 How you drove out the nations with your hand and planted them; how you afflicted the peoples and made them large.

3 For they did not conquer the land by their sword, nor did their own arm save them; but your right hand and your arm and the light of your countenance, because you delighted in them.

4 You are my King, O God; command salvation for Jacob.

5 Through you we will defeat our enemies; through your name we will tread down those who rise up against us.

6 For I will not trust in my bow, nor will my sword save me.

7 But you have saved us from our enemies and have put to shame those who hated us.

 8 In God we boast all the day long, and we praise your name forever.

9 But now you have rejected us and put us to shame, and you do not go out with our armies.

10 You have led us away from the enemy, and those who hate us have taken us as plunder.

11 You have given us up like sheep to eat, and have scattered us among the nations.

12 You sell your people for nothing, and you do not increase your wealth by their price.

13 You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and a byword to those around us.

14 You have made us a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples.

15 My shame is continually before me, and the shame of my face has covered me.

16 At the voice of him who reproaches and blasphemes, because of the enemy and the one who takes revenge.

 17 All this has happened to us, yet we have not forgotten you, nor have we dealt falsely against your covenant. 

18 Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps strayed from your paths; 

19 though you have crushed us in a place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. 

20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god, 

21 Does not God know this? For he knows the secrets of the heart. 

22 For your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 

23 Awake! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off forever. 

24 Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression? 

25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust, our body bowed down to the ground. 26 Arise for our help, and redeem us for your mercy's sake.