4Like lions your enemies roared through your house, replacing our symbols by signs of their own,
5hacking, like woodsmen who lift axes on thickets of trees,
6smashing with hatchets and hammers all of its carved work together.
7They have set your temple on fire, to the very ground they have outraged the place where lives your name.
8They have said in their heart, “Let us utterly crush them.” They have burned all the houses of God in the land.
9No symbol of ours do we see any more: no prophet is there any more, none is with us who knows how long.
10How long, O God, is the foe to insult? Shall the enemy spurn your name forever?
11Why, O Lord, do you hold back your hand, why keep your right hand in the folds of your robe?
12Yet God is our king from the ancient days, in the midst of the earth working deeds of salvation.
13It was you who did cleave the sea by your might, and shatter the heads of the ocean monsters.