Exultate Deo. Ps.81.I.H.

An exhortation to praise God for his benefits, condemning their ingratitude.

The first part The second part
Be light and glad in God rejoice,
which is our strength and stay:
Be joyful and lift up your voice,
to Jacob’s God I say.
 
2 Prepare your instruments most mete,
some joyful Psalm to sing:
Strike up with Harp and Lute so sweet,
on every pleasant string.
 
3 Blow as it were in the new moon,
with trumpets of the best:
As it is used to be done
at any solemn feast.
 
4 For this is unto Israel
a statute and a trade:
A law that must be kept full well
which Jacob’s God hath made.
 
5 This clause with Joseph was decreed,
when he from Egypt came:
That as a witness all his seed
should still observe the same.
 
6 When God I say had thus prepared
to bring him from that land:
Whereas the speech that he had heard,
he did not understand.
 
7 I from his shoulders took, saith he,
the burden clean away:
And from the furnace quit him free,
from burning brick of clay.
 
8 When thou in grief didst cry and call
I holp thee by and by:
And I did answer thee withal
in thunder secretly.
 
9 Yea at the waters of discord,
I did thee tempt and prove:
Whereas the goodness of the Lord
with muttering thou didst move.
 
10 Hear O my folk, O Israel,
and I assure it thee:
Regard and mark my words full well,
if thou wilt cleave to me.
11 Thou shalt no God in thee reserve
of any land abroad:
Nor in no wise to bow or serve
a strange and foreign God.
 
12 I am the Lord thy God, and I
from Egypt set thee free:
Then ask of me abundantly,
and I will give it thee.
 
13 And yet my people would not hear
my voice, when that I spake:
Nor Israel would not obey,
but did me quite forsake.
 
14 Then did I leave them to their will,
in hardness of their heart:
To walk in their own counsel still,
themselves they might pervert.
 
15 O that my people would have heard
the words that I did say:
And eke that Israel would regard
to walk within my way.
 
16 How soon would I confound their foes
and bring them down full low:
And turn my hand upon all those
that would them overthrow?
 
17 And they that at the Lord do rage,
as slaves should seek him ‘til:
But of his folk the time and age
should flourish ever still.
 
18 I would have fed them with the crop
and finest of the wheat:
And made the rock with honey drop,
that they their fills should eat.

THE BOOK OF PSALMS

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