You Keep Him in Perfect Peace

1In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;

he sets up salvation

as walls and bulwarks.

2Open the gates,

that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.

3You keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

4Trust in the LORD for ever,

for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

5For he has humbled

the inhabitants of the height,

the lofty city.

He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,

casts it to the dust.

6The foot tramples it,

the feet of the poor,

the steps of the needy.”

7The path of the righteous is level;

you make level the way of the righteous.

8In the path of your judgements,

O LORD, we wait for you;

your name and remembrance

are the desire of our soul.

9My soul yearns for you in the night;

my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

For when your judgements are in the earth,

the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

10If favour is shown to the wicked,

he does not learn righteousness;

in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly

and does not see the majesty of the LORD.

11O LORD, your hand is lifted up,

but they do not see it.

Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.

Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.

12O LORD, you will ordain peace for us;

for you have indeed done for us all our works.

13O LORD our God,

other lords besides you have ruled over us,

but your name alone we bring to remembrance.

14They are dead, they will not live;

they are shades, they will not arise;

to that end you have visited them with destruction

and wiped out all remembrance of them.

15But you have increased the nation, O LORD,

you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

16O LORD, in distress they sought you;

they poured out a whispered prayer

when your discipline was upon them.

17Like a pregnant woman

who writhes and cries out in her pangs

when she is near to giving birth,

so were we because of you, O LORD;

18we were pregnant, we writhed,

but we have given birth to wind.

We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,

and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.

19Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.

You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For your dew is a dew of light,

and the earth will give birth to the dead.

20Come, my people, enter your chambers,

and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves for a little while

until the fury has passed by.

21For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place

to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,

and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,

and will no more cover its slain.