Psalms of Solomon 2

1 When the sinner acted arrogantly, he knocked down fortified walls with a battering ram, and you did not stop him.

2 Foreign nations went up to your altar. They trampled it with their sandals in arrogance,

3 because the sons of Jerusalem had defiled the Lord’s holy things and treated God’s gifts as common through their lawlessness.

4 Because of these things he said,

“Throw them far away from me; I take no pleasure in them.”

5 The beauty of Jerusalem’s glory was despised before God; she was completely dishonored.

6 Her sons and daughters went into harsh captivity, with a seal on their necks and a mark among the nations.

7 He dealt with them according to their sins, for he abandoned them into the hands of those who overpowered them.

8 He turned his face away instead of showing them mercy—the young, the old, and their children all at once—because they had all done evil together by refusing to listen.

9 Heaven grew weary of them, and the earth detested them, because no one on earth had done all the things they did.

10 The earth will know all your righteous judgments, God.

11 They made the sons of Jerusalem an object of mockery because of the prostitutes within her; every passerby entered in broad daylight.

12 They mocked their lawless deeds, just as they themselves had done, and publicly exposed their wrongdoing in broad daylight.

13 The daughters of Jerusalem were treated as common according to your judgment, because they had defiled themselves through promiscuous mingling.

14 My belly and inward parts ache over these things.

15 I will vindicate you, God, with an upright heart, because your righteousness is present in your judgments.

16 You repaid the sinners according to their works and according to their exceedingly evil sins.

17 You uncovered their sins so that your judgment would appear, and you erased their memory from the earth.

18 God is a righteous judge who shows no favoritism.

19 The nations reproached Jerusalem by trampling her. Her beauty was dragged down from a throne of glory.

20 She wrapped herself in sackcloth instead of splendid clothing and put a rope around her head instead of a crown.

21 She removed the glorious turban that God had placed on her. Her beauty was dishonored and thrown to the ground.

22 I saw this, pleaded before the Lord, and said, “Lord, let it be enough that your hand weighs heavily on Jerusalem by bringing the nations against her.

23 For they mocked and showed no restraint, acting with anger, fury, and vengeance. They will finish us unless you, Lord, rebuke them in your anger.

24 They did this not from zeal, but from a craving to pour out their anger on us while they plundered us.

25 Do not delay, God, in repaying them upon their own heads, so that the dragon’s arrogance will be spoken of with dishonor.”

26 I did not wait long before God showed me his arrogance: he was pierced on the mountains of Egypt, despised as less than the least on land and sea.

27 His body was carried on the waves in great disgrace, with no one to bury it, because God had treated him with contempt and dishonor.

28 He did not consider that he was human, and he did not consider how he would end.

29 He said,

“I will be lord of land and sea,”

but he did not recognize that God is great, mighty in his vast strength.

30 God himself is king over the heavens and judge of kings and rulers.

31 He raises me to glory and puts the arrogant to sleep in eternal, dishonorable destruction, because they did not know him.

32 Now look, you great ones of the earth, at the Lord’s judgment, for he is a great and righteous king who judges everything under heaven.

33 Bless God, you who fear the Lord with knowledge, because the Lord’s mercy rests on those who fear him together with judgment:

34 he distinguishes between the righteous and the sinner and repays sinners forever according to their works.

35 He shows mercy to the righteous by freeing them from humiliation under the sinner, and he repays the sinner for what he did to the righteous.

36 The Lord is kind to those who call on him with endurance. He acts according to his mercy toward his holy ones, enabling them always to stand before him in strength.

37 Blessed is the Lord forever before his servants.