Psalm 81

Psalm 81 – For the Feast of Tabernacles

For the leader. On the gittith. Of Asaph.

1Sing aloud to God our strength,

shout for joy to the God of Jacob.

2Raise a song, sound the timbrel,

sweet lyre and harp.

3On the new moon blow the horn,

at the full moon, the day of our festival.

4For this is a statute for Israel,

a ruling of the God of Jacob,

5a witness he set up in Joseph,

when he marched against Egypt’s land,

where he heard an unknown voice say:

6“I removed from your shoulder the burden,

and freed your hands from the basket.

7At your call of distress I delivered you,

from the thundercloud I answered you.

At Meribah’s waters I tested you. Selah

8“Listen, my people, to my warning,

O Israel, if you would but listen!

9There must not be a strange god among you,

you must bow to no foreign god.

10I am the Lord your God

who brought you up out of Egypt.

Open your mouth, that I fill it.

11“But my people did not listen to my voice,

Israel would have none of me.

12So to their own hard hearts I left them,

to follow their own devices.

13O that my people would listen,

that Israel would walk in my ways.

14Soon would I humble their enemies,

and turn my hand on their foes.

15Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him

in everlasting terror.

16But you would I feed with the richest wheat,

and with honey from the rock to your heart’s desire.”