Deo exultate. Psal. lxxxi.
BE light and glad, in God rejoyce,
which is our strength and stay:
be joyful, and lift up your voice
to Jacobs God, I say.
[verse 2] Prepare your instruments most meet,
some joyful psalm to sing:
strike up with harp and lute so sweet,
on every pleasant string.
[verse 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.
•• For this is unto Israel
a statute and a trade:
••law that must be kept full well,
which Jacobs God hath made.
•• This clause with Joseph was decreed
when he from Egypt came,
That as a witness all his feed
should still observe the same.
•• When God. I say, had so prepar'd
to bring him from that land:
Whereas the speech which he had heard
he did not understand.
[verse 7] I from his shoulders took (saith he)
the burden clean away:
And from the furnace quit him free
from burning brick of clay.
[verse 8] When thou in grief didst cry and call,
I holp thee by and by:
And I did answer thee withal
in thunder secretly.
[verse 9] Yea, at the waters of discord
I did thee tempt and prove:
Whereas the goodness of the Lord
with mutt'ring thou didst move.
[verse 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.
The second part.
[verse 11] Thou shalt no god in thee reserve
of any land abroad:
Nor in no wise to bow or serve
a strange or forein god.
[verse 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.
[verse 13] And yet my people would not hear
my voice when that I spake:
Nor Israel would not obey,
but did me quite forsake.
[verse 14] Then did I leave them to their will,
in hardness of their heart:
To walk in their own counsels still,
themselves they might pervert.
[verse 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!
[verse 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!
[verse 17] And they that at the Lord do rage,
as slaves should seek him till:
But of his folk the time and age
should flourish ever still.
[verse 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.