Psalms 144
1 Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to fight, and my fingers to war.
Of David. Blest be the Lord my rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for fighting.
2 My mercy, and my refuge: my support, and my deliverer: My protector, and I have hoped in him: who subdueth my people under me.
My rock and my fortress, my tower, my deliverer, my shield, behind whom I take refuge, who lays nations low at my feet.
3 Lord, what is man, that thou art made known to him? or the son of man, that thou makest account of him?
Lord, what are mortals that you care for them, humans, that you think of them?
4 Man is like to vanity: his days pass away like a shadow.
They are like a breath, their days as a shadow that passes.
5 Lord, bow down thy heavens and descend: touch the mountains and they shall smoke.
Lord, bow your heavens and come down: touch the hills, so that they smoke.
6 Send forth lightning, and thou shalt scatter them: shoot out thy arrows, and thou shalt trouble them.
Flash forth lightning and scatter them, your arrows send forth and confound them.
7 Put forth thy hand from on high, take me out, and deliver me from many waters: from the hand of strange children:
Stretch out your hand from on high; pluck me out of the mighty waters, out of the hands of foreigners,
8 Whose mouth hath spoken vanity: and their right hand is the right hand of iniquity.
who speak with the mouth of falsehood, and lift their right hand to swear lies.
9 To thee, O God, I will sing a new canticle: on the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings I will sing praises to thee.
O God, a new song I would sing you, on a ten-stringed harp make you music.
10 Who givest salvation to kings: who hast redeemed thy servant David from the malicious sword:
For to kings you give the victory, and David your servant you save.
11 Deliver me, And rescue me out of the hand of strange children; whose mouth hath spoken vanity: and their right hand is the right hand of iniquity:
Snatch me from the cruel sword, rescue me from the hand of foreigners, who speak with the mouth of falsehood, and lift their right hand to swear lies.
12 Whose sons are as new plants in their youth: Their daughters decked out, adorned round about after the similitude of a temple:
May our sons in their youth be as plants well tended: our daughters like cornices carved as in palaces.
13 Their storehouses full, flowing out of this into that. Their sheep fruitful in young, abounding in their goings forth:
May our barns be bursting with produce of all kinds. In the fields may our sheep bear by thousands and ten thousands.
14 Their oxen fat. There is no breach of wall, nor passage, nor crying out in their streets.
May our cattle be fat, our walls unbreached, may no cry of distress ring in our streets.
15 They have called the people happy, that hath these things: but happy is that people whose God is the Lord.
Happy the people who fares so well: and so fares the people whose God is the Lord.
