For Tish'ah be-Av: Psalm 79

(1) A psalm of Asaph.

O God, the nations have entered Your inheritance,

defiled Your holy temple,

turned Jerusalem into ruins.

(2) They have given Your servants’ corpses

as food for birds of heaven,

the flesh of Your pious ones for wild beasts.

(3) They spilled their blood like water around Jerusalem,

with none to bury them.

(4) We have become a disgrace before our neighbors,

the scorn and derision of those around us.

(5) Until what, O Hashem, will You be angry forever,

will Your indignation blaze like fire?

(6) Pour out Your fury on the nations that do not know You,

upon the kingdoms that have not called Your name,

(7) for/rather they have devoured Jacob

and have made his dwelling desolated.

(8) Do not recall against us our former iniquities;

may Your compassion quickly overtake us,

for we have sunk very low.

(9) Help us, O God, our Salvation,

for the sake of the glory of Your name.

and save us and cleanse our sins,

for the sake of Your name.

(10) Why [let] the nations say, “Where is their God?”

Before our eyes let it be known among the nations

the avenging of the spilled blood of Your servants.

(11) May the groans of prisoners come before You;

according to/by the strength of your arm, release those condemned to death.

(12) Pay back our neighbors sevenfold to their bosom

for the disgrace with which they have disgraced You, O Lord.

(13) [Then] We, Your people, the flock You shepherd,

we will acknowledge You forever;

from generation to generation we will tell Your praise.

(44) and the Philistine said to David, “Come here, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field.”

(2) Let the nations not say,

“Where, now, is their God?”

(3) when our God is in heaven

and all that He wills He accomplishes.

(24) God heard their moaning,

and God remembered His covenant

with Abraham with Isaac, and with Jacob.

(2) There on the poplars we hung up our lyres,

(3) for our captors asked us there for songs,

our tormentors, for amusement,

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

(4) How can we sing a song of Hashem on alien soil?