Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me;

As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;

When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;

The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up.

The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.

Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.

I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.

I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.

Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.

My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand.

After my words they spake not again; and my speech dropped upon them.

If I laughed on them, they believed it not; and the light of my countenance they cast not down.

But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.

I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.

I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.

Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?

Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.

And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?

And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?

Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire.

For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;

A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel.

He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD.

Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.

All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land?

Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion.