A Lament After a Defeat and a Prayer for Restoration

For the music director, according to Shushan Eduth.

A miktam of David. To teach.

When he fought Mesopotamia and Aram Zobah, and Joab returned and struck Edom in the Valley of Salt, twelve thousand persons.

1 O God, you have rejected us. You have broken us.

You have been angry. Restore us!

2 You have made the land quake. You have split it open.

Heal its fissures, because it totters.

3 You have shown your people hard things;

You have given us wine that staggers.

4 You have rallied those who fear you round a banner

out of bowshot,Selah

5 so that your beloved ones may be rescued.

Save by your right hand and answer us.

6 God has spoken in his holiness,

“I will rejoice;

I will divide up Shechem,

and portion out the valley of Succoth.

7 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine,

and Ephraim is the helmet formy head;

Judah is my scepter.

8 Moab is my washing pot;

over Edom, I will cast my sandal.

On account of me, O Philistia, raise a shout.”

9 Who will bring me to the fortified city?

Who will lead me to Edom?

10 Have not you yourself rejected us, O God,

and not gone out with our armies, O God?

11 Give us help against the adversary,

for the help of humankind is futile.

12 Through God we will do valiantly,

and it is he who will tread down our enemies.