Psalm 137
Evangelical Heritage Version
Psalm 137
Beside the Rivers of Babylon
Sorrow for Jerusalem
1 Beside the rivers[a] of Babylon,
there we sat, and, yes, we wept as we remembered Zion.
2 There we hung up our lyres on the willows,
3 because there our captors asked us for words of a song,
and our tormentors asked for a happy song:
“Sing for us one of the songs of Zion!”
Zeal for Zion
4 How can we sing a song of the Lord on foreign soil?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget how to play music.[b]
6 May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my highest joy.
Zeal for God’s Vengeance
7 Remember the day of Jerusalem, O Lord,
against the descendants of Edom[c] who said,
“Tear it down, tear it down to its foundations!”
8 Daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
how blessed is the one who repays you
with the same deeds you did against us.
9 How blessed is the one who seizes your children
and dashes them against the cliff.
Footnotes
- Psalm 137:1 Many of the rivers were in fact canals running off the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
- Psalm 137:5 The words how to play music are supplied to clarify the point of reference.
- Psalm 137:7 This wording recalls the hostility between Jacob (called Israel) and Esau (called Edom).
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.