1 On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: "Ours is a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts.
2 Open up the gates and let the righteous nation come in, the nation that stays faithful.
3 You keep in perfect peace the one whose mind is fixed on you, because he trusts in you.
4 Trust in the LORD for all time, for in the LORD, the LORD himself, we have a Rock of ages.
5 He has humbled those who live on the heights; he brings down the towering city, brings it down to the ground and throws it into the dust.
6 Feet trample it down, the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor."
7 The way of the righteous is straight; you who are upright make level the path of the righteous.
8 Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your judgments, we wait for you; our soul longs for your name and for the memory of you.
9 My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me seeks you at dawn. For when your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.
10 Though grace is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; even in a land of honesty he does wrong and fails to see the majesty of the LORD.
11 LORD, your hand is raised high, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for the people and be put to shame; let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.
12 LORD, you will set peace in place for us, for everything we have achieved, you have done for us.
13 LORD our God, masters other than you have ruled over us, but your name alone is the one we honor.
14 They are dead and will not live again; they are shades and will not rise. Therefore you punished them and wiped them out; you erased every memory of them.
15 You have made the nation bigger, LORD, you have made the nation bigger; you have won glory for yourself; you have extended all the borders of the land.
16 LORD, in their trouble they looked for you; when you disciplined them, they could only whisper a prayer.
17 As a pregnant woman near the time of birth writhes and screams in her labor pains, so were we in your presence, LORD.
18 We were pregnant, we writhed in pain, but it was as though we gave birth to wind. We have brought no salvation to the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not been born.
19 Your dead will live; my dead bodies will rise. You who lie in the dust, wake up and shout for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the shades.
20 Go, my people, into your rooms and close the doors behind you; hide for a short while until the fury has gone by.
21 For the LORD is about to come out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will uncover the blood spilled on it and will no longer hide its dead.