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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. ²Open the gates, so that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. ³Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace— in peace because they trust in you. ⁴Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord God you have an everlasting rock.

⁵For 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. ⁶The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy. ⁷The way of the righteous is level; O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous. ⁸In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and your renown are the soul’s desire. ⁹My soul yearns for you in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. ¹⁰If favor 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. 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 indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us. ¹³O Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but we acknowledge your name alone. ¹⁴The dead do not live; shades do not rise— because you have punished and destroyed them, and wiped out all memory 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 prayer when your chastening was on them. ¹⁷Like 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; ¹⁸we 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. ¹⁹Your 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.

²⁰Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past. ²¹For 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.