Psalms 104:16–21

⁶As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters.

⁵The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.

²To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night,

²³In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell.

¹²By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.

¹⁹And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

²¹Whose leaves were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all; under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and upon whose branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation:

⁶All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.

²³O inhabitant of Lebanon, that makest thy nest in the cedars, how gracious shalt thou be when pangs come upon thee, the pain as of a woman in travail!

⁷Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord.

³²Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

⁴Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.

²⁶The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks;

¹KNOWEST thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth? or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve?

²Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats.

⁵And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

⁷Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you.

¹⁴¶ And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

¹⁵And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

¹⁶And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

¹⁷And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

¹⁸And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

³⁵¶ Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name:

⁷To him that made great lights: for his mercy endureth for ever:

⁸The sun to rule by day: for his mercy endureth for ever:

⁹The moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth for ever.

¹²Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;

⁶His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

³When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

²⁶If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness;

²⁷And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand:

²⁸This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above.

¹⁹And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

⁷I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

¹⁶The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun.

¹³¶ Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border:

⁴And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

⁵And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

²²While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

¹⁰Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

¹¹If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

¹²Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

¹⁰For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

³⁹Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions,

²⁰The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

¹⁰The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.

²And say, What is thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.

³And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men.

⁴The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt.

⁵Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.

⁶And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.

⁷And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, by the noise of his roaring.

⁸Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him: he was taken in their pit.

⁹And they put him in ward in chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon: they brought him into holds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰¶ Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.

¹¹And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.

¹²But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.

¹³And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.

¹⁴And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.

²²Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength.

⁴Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing?

⁴For thus hath the Lord spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion, and for the hill thereof.

⁴¹Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.

¹⁸How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

¹⁵The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.

⁹He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.