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Psalm 44

1  We have heard with our ears, O God, our forebears have told us, ♦︎
   all that you did in their days, in time of old;
2  How with your hand you drove out nations and planted us in, ♦︎
   and broke the power of peoples and set us free.
3  For not by their own sword did our ancestors take the land ♦︎
   nor did their own arm save them,
4  But your right hand, your arm, and the light of your countenance, ♦︎
   because you were gracious to them.
5  You are my King and my God, ♦︎
   who commanded salvation for Jacob.
6  Through you we drove back our adversaries; ♦︎
   through your name we trod down our foes.
7  For I did not trust in my bow; ♦︎
   it was not my own sword that saved me;
8  It was you that saved us from our enemies ♦︎
   and put our adversaries to shame.
9  We gloried in God all the day long, ♦︎
   and were ever praising your name.
10  But now you have rejected us and brought us to shame, ♦︎
   and go not out with our armies.
11  You have made us turn our backs on our enemies, ♦︎
   and our enemies have despoiled us.
12  You have made us like sheep to be slaughtered, ♦︎
   and have scattered us among the nations.
13  You have sold your people for a pittance ♦︎
   and made no profit on their sale.
14  You have made us the taunt of our neighbours, ♦︎
   the scorn and derision of those that are round about us.
15  You have made us a byword among the nations; ♦︎
   among the peoples they wag their heads.
16  My confusion is daily before me, ♦︎
   and shame has covered my face,
17  At the taunts of the slanderer and reviler, ♦︎
   at the sight of the enemy and avenger.
18  All this has come upon us,
      though we have not forgotten you ♦︎
   and have not played false to your covenant.
19  Our hearts have not turned back, ♦︎
   nor our steps gone out of your way,
20  Yet you have crushed us in the haunt of jackals, ♦︎
   and covered us with the shadow of death.
21  If we have forgotten the name of our God, ♦︎
   or stretched out our hands to any strange god,
22  Will not God search it out? ♦︎
   For he knows the secrets of the heart.
23  But for your sake are we killed all the day long, ♦︎
   and are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
24  Rise up! Why sleep, O Lord? ♦︎
   Awake, and do not reject us for ever.
25  Why do you hide your face ♦︎
   and forget our grief and oppression?
26  Our soul is bowed down to the dust; ♦︎
   our belly cleaves to the earth.
27  Rise up, O Lord, to help us ♦︎
   and redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

A Call to Repentance

6‘Come, let us return to the Lord;
   for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
   he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
² After two days he will revive us;
   on the third day he will raise us up,
   that we may live before him.
³ Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;
   his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
   like the spring rains that water the earth.’

Impenitence of Israel and Judah

⁴ What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
   What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
   like the dew that goes away early.
⁵ Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets,
   I have killed them by the words of my mouth,
   and my^* judgement goes forth as the light.
⁶ For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
   the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings.

⁷ But at^* Adam they transgressed the covenant;
   there they dealt faithlessly with me.
⁸ Gilead is a city of evildoers,
   tracked with blood.
⁹ As robbers lie in wait^* for someone,
   so the priests are banded together;^*
they murder on the road to Shechem,
   they commit a monstrous crime.
¹⁰ In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
   Ephraim’s whoredom is there, Israel is defiled.

Israel’s Unbelief

30 What then are we to say? Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; ³¹but Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law. ³²Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling-stone, ³³as it is written,
‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall,
   and whoever believes in him^* will not be put to shame.’

10Brothers and sisters,^* my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. ²I can testify that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. ³For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness. ⁴For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.