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Judah’s Song of Victory

26On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city;
   he sets up victory
   like walls and bulwarks.
² Open the gates,
   so that the righteous nation that keeps faith
   may enter in.
³ Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace—
   in peace because they trust in you.
⁴ Trust in the Lord for ever,
   for in the Lord God ^*
   you have an everlasting rock.
⁵ For he has brought low
   the inhabitants of the height;
   the lofty city he lays low.
He lays it low to the ground,
   casts it to the dust.
⁶ The foot tramples it,
   the feet of the poor,
   the steps of the needy.

⁷ The way of the righteous is level;
   O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous.
⁸ In the path of your judgements,
   O Lord, we wait for you;
your name and your renown
   are the soul’s desire.
⁹ My 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.
¹⁰ If favour is shown to the wicked,
   they do not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness they deal perversely
   and do not see the majesty of the Lord.
¹¹ O 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.
¹² O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,
   for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us.
¹³ O Lord our God,
   other lords besides you have ruled over us,
   but we acknowledge your name alone.
¹⁴ The dead do not live;
   shades do not rise—
because you have punished and destroyed them,
   and wiped out all memory of them.
¹⁵ But you have increased the nation, O Lord,
   you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
   you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

¹⁶ O Lord, in distress they sought you,
   they poured out a prayer^*
   when your chastening was on them.
¹⁷ Like a woman with child,
   who writhes and cries out in her pangs
   when she is near her time,
so were we because of you, O Lord;
¹⁸   we were with child, we writhed,
   but we gave birth only to wind.
We have won no victories on earth,
   and no one is born to inhabit the world.
¹⁹ Your dead shall live, their corpses^* shall rise.
   O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a radiant dew,
   and the earth will give birth to those long dead.^*

²⁰ Come, my people, enter your chambers,
   and shut your doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
   until the wrath is past.
²¹ For the Lord comes out from his place
   to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
   and will no longer cover its slain.