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Psalms 107
God, a refuge in all dangers
1 Alleluia! Give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good, his love is everlasting:
2 let these be the words of Yahweh’s redeemed, those he has redeemed from the oppressor’s clutches,
3 by bringing them home from foreign countries, from east and west, from north and south.
4 Some had lost their way in the wilds and the desert, not knowing how to reach an inhabited town;
5 they were hungry and desperately thirsty, their courage was running low.
6 Then they called to Yahweh in their trouble and he rescued them from their sufferings,
7 guiding them by a route leading direct to an inhabited town.
8 Let these thank Yahweh for his love, for his marvels on behalf of men;
9 satisfying the hungry, he fills the starving with good things.
10 Some were living in gloom and darkness, fettered in misery and irons
11 for defying the orders of God, for scorning the advice of the Most High;
12 who bent them double with hardship, to breaking point, with no one to help them.
13 Then they called to Yahweh in their trouble
14 releasing them from gloom and darkness, shattering their chains.
15 Let these thank Yahweh for his love, for his marvels on behalf of men;
16 breaking bronze gates open, he smashes iron bars.
17 Some, driven frantic by their sins, made miserable by their own guilt
18 and finding all food repugnant, were nearly at death’s door.
19 Then they called to Yahweh in their trouble and he rescued them from their sufferings;
20 sending his word and curing them, he snatched them from the Pit.
21 Let these thank Yahweh for his love, for his marvels on behalf of men.
22 Let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices and proclaim with shouts of joy what he has done.
23 Others, taking ship and going to sea, were plying their business across the ocean;
24 they too saw what Yahweh could do, what marvels on the deep!
25 He spoke and raised a gale, lashing up towering waves.
26 Flung to the sky, then plunged to the depths, they lost their nerve in the ordeal,
27 staggering and reeling like drunkards with all their seamanship adrift.
28 Then they called to Yahweh in their trouble and he rescued them from their sufferings,
29 reducing the storm to a whisper until the waves grew quiet,
30 bringing them, glad at the calm, safe to the port they were bound for.
31 Let these thank Yahweh for his love, for his marvels on behalf of men.
32 Let them extol him at the Great Assembly and praise him in the Council of Elders.
33 Sometimes he turned rivers into desert, springs of water into arid ground,
34 or a fertile country into salt-flats, because the people living there were wicked.
35 Or again, he turned a desert into sheets of water, and an arid country into flowing springs,
36 where he gave the hungry a home in which to found a habitable town.
37 There, they sow the fields and plant their vines, there, they show a profitable harvest.
38 He blesses them, they grow in number, he sees that their livestock does not decrease.
39 Their numbers had fallen, they had grown weak under pressure of disaster and hardship.
40 Pouring his contempt upon the nobly born, he left them to wander in a trackless waste.
41 But now, he lifts the needy out of their misery, and gives them a flock of new families;
42 at the sight of which, upright hearts rejoice and wickedness must hold its tongue.
43 If you are wise, study these things and realise how Yahweh shows his love.