Psalm 44

O God our fathers have us told,
We heard it with our ears:
What works thou did'st in times of old,
In those rare days of theirs.
How heathen people by thy hand,
Quite dispossessed were:
Afflicted and expel'd the land,
To plant our fathers there.
With their own sword they never got
Possession of the land:
Their own puissance sav'd them not,
But thy right arm and hand.
This from thy lightsome countenance,
Much favouring them, did spring:
To Jacob grant deliverance,
O God that art my King.
We will push down our enemies,
Through thy great Name O God:
And all that up against us rise,
Shall thus be undertrod.
For sure my trust shall not be plac't
In swords defence nor bows:
But thou our haters hast disgrac't,
And sav'd us from our foes.

2. Part.
IN God we all day long will boast,
And daily praise thy Name:
But now thou goest not with our hoast,
But casts us off with shame.
Thou mak'st us from the slaughtering foe
Faint-hearted to retire:
And they that hate us spoil us so
Even as themselves desire.
Thou gavest us into their hands,
As sheep ordain'd for food:
And scattered us in all the lands,
Among a heath'nish brood.
Thy people thou dost sell for nought,
And lo, thou did'st not adde
Nor yet increase thy substance ought
By price for Israel had.
Our neighbours with reproachfull mocks
And scornfull tauntings flout:
We are become as laughing-stocks
To dwellers round about.
Thou makest us a by-word here
Among the heathen spread:
Among the people every-where
A shaking of the head.
Lo my confusion through disgrace
Before me still I see:
The shame of my abashed face
Hath also covered mee.
For his voice sake that doth reherse
Such blasphemies and taunts:
By reason of th' avenger fierce
And adversaries vaunts.

3. Part.
THis storm of trouble have we felt,
Yet have not thee forgot:
Nor in thy Covenant falsly dealt,
Our hearts diverting not:
Nor from thy ways our steps have stray'd,
Though thou hast broke us sore
In Dragons dens, and deaths dark shade,
Where we are covered ore.
If our Gods Name we have forgot,
To strange gods rear'd our hands,
God shall discov'r it, shall he not?
Our thoughts that understands.
We all day long are kil'd and slain,
Even for thy dear Names sake:
As sheep for slaughter we are ta'n,
Why sleep'st thou? Lord awake.
Cast us not off for evermore,
Arise, why hid'st thy face?
Forgetting our afflictions sore,
And our distressed case.
For down to dust our soul is trod,
On earth as worms we craul:
For thy sweet mercies sake, ô God,
Rise, help, redeem us all.