Psalm 81

¹ Sing loud to God our strength; with joy

to Jacob’s God do sing.

² Take up a psalm, the pleasant harp,

timbrel and psalt’ry bring.

³ Blow trumpets at new-moon, what day

our feast appointed is:

⁴ For charge to Isr’el, and a law

of Jacob’s God was this.

⁵ To Joseph this a testimony

he made, when Egypt land

He travell’d through, where speech I heard

I did not understand.

⁶ His shoulder I from burdens took,

his hands from pots did free.

⁷ Thou didst in trouble on me call,

and I deliver’d thee:

In secret place of thundering

I did thee answer make;

And at the streams of Meribah

of thee a proof did take. Selah.

⁸ O thou, my people, give an ear,

I’ll testify to thee;

To thee, O Isr’el, if thou wilt

but hearken unto me.

⁹ In midst of thee there shall not be

any strange god at all;

Nor unto any god unknown

thou bowing down shalt fall.

¹⁰ I am the Lord thy God, which did

from Egypt land thee guide;

I’ll fill thy mouth abundantly,

do thou it open wide.

¹¹ But yet my people to my voice

would not attentive be;

And ev’n my chosen Israel

he would have none of me.

¹² So to the lust of their own hearts

I them delivered;

And then in counsels of their own

they vainly wandered.

¹³ O that my people had me heard,

Isr’el my ways had chose!

¹⁴ I had their en’mies soon subdu’d,

my hand turn’d on their foes.

¹⁵ The haters of the Lord to him

submission should have feign’d;

But as for them, their time should have

for evermore remain’d.

¹⁶ He should have also fed them with

the finest of the wheat;

Of honey from the rock thy fill

I should have made thee eat.