I cannot read this psalm without the Scottish Psalter 2nd version running through my mind (listen to a friend's piano arrangement of the tune here)...
1 Now Israel may say, and that truly,
If that the Lord had not our cause maintained,
2 If that the Lord had not our right sustained,
When cruel men who us desired to slay
Rose up in wrath, to make of us their prey;
3 Then certainly they had devoured us all,
And swallowed quick, for ought that we could deem;
Such was their rage, as we might well esteem.
4 And as fierce floods before them all things drown,
So had they brought our soul to death quite down.
5 The raging streams, with their proud swelling waves,
Had then our soul o'erwhelmed in the deep.
6 But blessed be God, Who doth us safely keep,
And gave us not a living prey to be
Unto their teeth and bloody cruelty.
7 E'en as a bird out of the fowler's snare
Escapes away, so is our soul set free:
Rent is their net, and thus escaped we.
8 Therefore our help is in the Lord's great name,
Who heaven and earth by His great power did frame.
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