Psalm 81 – For the Feast of Tabernacles

For the leader. On the gittith. Of Asaph.

81 Sing aloud to God our strength,

shout for joy to the God of Jacob.

2 Raise a song, sound the timbrel,

sweet lyre and harp.

3 On the new moon blow the horn,

at the full moon, the day of our festival.

4 For this is a statute for Israel,

a ruling of the God of Jacob,

5 a 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.

7 At 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!

9 There must not be a strange god among you,

you must bow to no foreign god.

10 I 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.

12 So to their own hard hearts I left them,

to follow their own devices.

13 O that my people would listen,

that Israel would walk in my ways.

14 Soon would I humble their enemies,

and turn my hand on their foes.

15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him

in everlasting terror.

16 But you would I feed with the richest wheat,

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