A canticle of thanksgiving for God’s judgments and benefits.
25:1. O Lord, thou art my God, I will exalt thee, and give glory to thy
name: for thou hast done wonderful things, thy designs of old faithful,
amen.
25:2. For thou hast reduced the city to a heap, the strong city to
ruin, the house of strangers, to be no city, and to be no more built up
for ever.
25:3. Therefore shall a strong people praise thee, the city of mighty
nations shall fear thee.
25:4. Because thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the
needy in his distress: a refuge from the whirlwind, a shadow from the
heat. For the blast of the mighty is like a whirlwind beating against a
wall.
25:5. Thou shalt bring down the tumult of strangers, as heat in thirst:
and as with heat under a burning cloud, thou shalt make the branch of
the mighty to wither away.
25:6. And the Lord of hosts shall make unto all people in this
mountain, a feast of fat things, a feast of wine, of fat things full of
marrow, of wine purified from the lees.
25:7. And he shall destroy in this mountain the face of the bond with
which all people were tied, and the web that he began over all nations.
25:8. He shall cast death down headlong for ever: and the Lord God
shall wipe away tears from every face, and the reproach of his people
he shall take away from off the whole earth: for the Lord hath spoken
it.
25:9. And they shall say in that day: Lo, this is our God, we have
waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord, we have
patiently waited for him, we shall rejoice and be joyful in his
salvation.
25:10. For the hand of the Lord shall rest in this mountain: and Moab
shall be trodden down under him, as straw is broken in pieces with the
wain.
Moab.... That is, the reprobate, whose eternal punishment, from which
they can no way escape, is described under these figures.
25:11. And he shall stretch forth his hands under him, as he that
swimmeth stretcheth forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down
his glory with the dashing of his hands.
25:12. And the bulwarks of thy high walls shall fall, and be brought
low, and shall be pulled down to the ground, even to the dust.