Psalm 129

¹“Since my youth they have often attacked me,”

let Israel say.

²“Since my youth they have often attacked me,

but they have not defeated me.

³The plowers plowed my back;

they made their furrows long.

⁴The Lord is just;

he cut the ropes of the wicked.”

⁵May all who hate Zion

be humiliated and turned back!

⁶May they be like the grass on the rooftops

which withers before one can even pull it up,

⁷which cannot fill the reaper’s hand,

or the lap of the one who gathers the grain!

⁸Those who pass by will not say,[#tn The perfect verbal form is used for rhetorical effect; it describes an anticipated development as if it were already reality.]

“May you experience the Lord ’s blessing!

We pronounce a blessing on you in the name of the Lord .”