Benedictus Dominus.
The prophet praiseth God, and prayeth to be delivered from his enemies.
No worldly happiness is to be compared with that of serving God.
A psalm of David against Goliath.
143:1. Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to fight, and
my fingers to war.
143:2. My mercy, and my refuge: my support, and my deliverer: My
protector, and I have hoped in him: who subdueth my people under me.
143:3. Lord, what is man, that thou art made known to him? or the son of
man, that thou makest account of him?
143:4. Man is like to vanity: his days pass away like a shadow.
143:5. Lord, bow down thy heavens and descend: touch the mountains, and
they shall smoke.
143:6. Send forth lightning, and thou shalt scatter them: shoot out thy
arrows, and thou shalt trouble them.
143:7. Put forth thy hand from on high, take me out, and deliver me from
many waters: from the hand of strange children:
143:8. Whose mouth hath spoken vanity: and their right hand is the right
hand of iniquity.
143:9. To thee, O God, I will sing a new canticle: on the psaltery and
an instrument of ten strings I will sing praises to thee.
143:10. Who givest salvation to kings: who hast redeemed thy servant
David from the malicious sword:
143:11. Deliver me, And rescue me out of the hand of strange children;
whose mouth hath spoken vanity: and their right hand is the right hand
of iniquity:
143:12. Whose sons are as new plants in their youth: Their daughters
decked out, adorned round about after the similitude of a temple:
143:13. Their storehouses full, flowing out of this into that. Their
sheep fruitful in young, abounding in their goings forth:
143:14. Their oxen fat. There is no breach of wall, nor passage, nor
crying out in their streets.
143:15. They have called the people happy, that hath these things: but
happy is that people whose God is the Lord.