Psalms 81

Sing for Joy to God Our Strength

For the choirmaster. According to Gittith.* Of Asaph.
Sing for joy to God our strength;
make a joyful noise to the God of Jacob.
2  Lift up a song, strike the tambourine,
play the sweet-sounding harp and lyre.
3  Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon,
and at the full moon on the day of our Feast.
4  For this is a statute for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5  He ordained it as a testimony for Joseph*
when he went out over the land of Egypt,
where I heard an unfamiliar language:
6  “I relieved his shoulder of the burden;
his hands were freed from the basket.
7  You called out in distress, and I rescued you;
I answered you from the cloud of thunder;
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.*
Selah
8  Hear, O My people, and I will warn you:
O Israel, if only you would listen to Me!
9  There must be no strange god among you,
nor shall you bow to a foreign god.
10  I am the LORD your God,
who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth,
and I will fill it.
11  But My people would not listen to Me,
and Israel would not obey Me.
12  So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts
to follow their own devices.
13  If only My people would listen to Me,
if Israel would follow My ways,
14  how soon I would subdue their enemies
and turn My hand against their foes!
15  Those who hate the LORD would feign obedience,
and their doom would last forever.
16  But I would feed you the finest wheat;
with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
Psalm 80Psalm 82

Footnotes

v. 1Gittith is probably a musical or liturgical term; here and in Psalms 8 and 84.
v. 5Or in Joseph
v. 7Meribah means quarreling; see Exodus 17:7.
Psalm 80Psalm 82