Psalms 88

¹The understanding of Ethan the Ezrahite.

²I will sing the mercies of the Lord in eternity. I will announce your truth with my mouth, from generation to generation.

³For you have said: Mercy will be built in the heavens, unto eternity. Your truth will be prepared there.

⁴I have set up a covenant with my elect. I have sworn to David my servant:

⁵I will prepare your offspring, even in eternity. And I will build up your throne, from generation to generation.

⁶The heavens will confess your miracles, Lord, and also your truth, in the Church of the saints.

⁷For who among the clouds is equal to the Lord? Who among the sons of God is like God?

⁸God is glorified by the counsel of the saints. He is great and terrible above all those who are around him.

⁹O Lord, God of hosts, who is like you? You are powerful, Lord, and your truth is all around you.

¹⁰You rule over the power of the sea, and you even mitigate the movement of its waves.

¹¹You have humbled the arrogant one, like one who has been wounded. You have scattered your enemies with the arm of your strength.

¹²Yours are the heavens, and yours is the earth. You founded the whole world in all its fullness.

¹³You created the north and the sea. Tabor and Hermon will exult in your name.

¹⁴Your arm acts with power. Let your hand be strengthened, and let your right hand be exalted.

¹⁵Justice and judgment are the preparation of your throne. Mercy and truth will precede your face.

¹⁶Blessed is the people that knows jubilation. They will walk in the light of your countenance, O Lord,

¹⁷and they will exult in your name all day long, and they will be exalted in your justice.

¹⁸For you are the glory of their virtue, and in your goodness, our horn will be exalted.

¹⁹For our assumption is of the Lord, and it is of our king, the holy one of Israel.

²⁰Then you spoke in a vision to your holy ones, and you said: I have stationed help with the powerful one, and I have exalted the elect one from my people.

²¹I have found my servant David. I have anointed him with my holy oil.

²²For my hand will assist him, and my arm will fortify him.

²³The enemy will have no advantage over him, nor will the son of iniquity be positioned to harm him.

²⁴And I will cut down his enemies before his face. And those who hate him, I will turn to flight.

²⁵And my truth and my mercy will be with him. And his horn will be exalted in my name.

²⁶And I will place his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers.

²⁷He will invoke me: “You are my father, my God, and the support of my salvation.”

²⁸And I will make him the first-born, preeminent before the kings of the earth.

²⁹I will preserve my mercy for him eternally, and my covenant for him faithfully.

³⁰And I will set his offspring from generation to generation, and his throne like the days of heaven.

³¹But if his sons abandon my law, and if they do not walk in my judgments,

³²if they profane my justices, and if they do not keep my commandments:

³³I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with a beating.

³⁴But I will not scatter my mercy from him, and I will not do harm to my truth.

³⁵And I will not profane my covenant, and I will not make void that which proceeds from my lips.

³⁶I have sworn by my holiness one time: I will not lie to David,

³⁷his offspring will remain for eternity. And his throne will be like the sun in my sight,

³⁸and, like the moon, it is perfected in eternity, and it is a faithful witness in heaven.

³⁹Yet, truly, you have rejected and despised, you have pushed away, my Christ.

⁴⁰You have overthrown the covenant of your servant. You have profaned his sanctuary on earth.

⁴¹You have destroyed all his fences. You have made his territory dreadful.

⁴²All who pass by the way have plundered him. He has become a disgrace to his neighbors.

⁴³You have exalted the right hand of those who oppress him. You have brought joy to all his enemies.

⁴⁴You have diverted the help of his sword, and you have not assisted him in battle.

⁴⁵You have torn him away from cleansing, and you have smashed his throne down to the ground.

⁴⁶You have reduced the days of his time. You have flooded him with confusion.

⁴⁷How long, O Lord? Will you turn away unto the end? Will your wrath flare up like a fire?

⁴⁸Remember what my substance is. For could you really have appointed all the sons of men in vain?

⁴⁹Who is the man that will live, and yet not see death? Who will rescue his own soul from the hand of the underworld?

⁵⁰O Lord, where are your mercies of antiquity, just as you swore to David in your truth?

⁵¹Be mindful, O Lord, of the disgrace of your servants (which I have sustained in my sinews) among many nations.

⁵²With these, your enemies have reproached you, O Lord; with these, they have reproached the commutation of your Christ.

⁵³Blessed is the Lord for all eternity. Amen. Amen.

Psalms 88

¹O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee:

²Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry;

³For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

⁴I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

⁵Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

⁶Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

⁷Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.

⁸Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.

⁹Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: Lord, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.

¹⁰Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.

¹¹Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?

¹²Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

¹³But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.

¹⁴Lord, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?

¹⁵I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.

¹⁶Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.

¹⁷They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together.

¹⁸Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.