A prayer for deliverance from a hostile army.

1 O God, the Mighty, the Shaker, brave hero, fort-demolisher, shake them up, that into a thousand fragments we may strike the armies of our foes!

2 Let the foul-smelling plant with her breath corrupt and putrefy that host, and terror smite our foemen's heart when fire and smoke are seen afar.

3 Let the fig-tree rend those men; let the acacia quickly devour them! Like reeds let them be broken through, down-smitten by a lifted rush.

4 Let the Parushahva reed make them reeds, and let the bulrush strike them down; bound in a mighty net let them break quickly like an arrow's shaft.

5 Air was the net; the poles thereof were the great quarters of the sky: the Powerful One therewith enveloped and cast on the ground the host of the wicked.

6 Verily mighty is the net of the Powerful, rich in wealth: therewith press all the foemen down so that not one of them escape!

7 Great is thy net, brave God, thine the mighty, match for a thousand, Lord of a Hundred Powers! Therewith hath the Mighty slaughtered the wicked hosts, a hundred, thousand, myriad, hundred millions.

8 This world so mighty was the net of the Powerful, the Mighty One: with this net I envelop all those men with gloom.

9 May great weakness and misfortune, pain which words can never charm away, languor, fatigue, bewilderment, compass all the foes.

10 I give those foemen up to death: bound in the bonds of death are they. May they be carried away to meet the angels of death.

11 Bear them away, ye messengers of death! bind them fast. More than a thousand be their slain: may the club of the Avenger pierce them through!

12 Forth go the angels in their might bearing one net-pole raised aloft. One pole one host carries, one a second, and one a third.

13 The angels all shall come from above depressing it with might, and in the midst the righteous, slaying the mighty host, shall go.

14 Trees of the forest, trees that bear flower and fruit, and herbs and plants, quadruped and biped,—by God's command may they strike this army dead.

15 Angels, serpents, holy men, seen and unseen,—by God's command may they strike this army dead.

16 Here spread are snares of death wherefrom thou, once within them, ne'er art freed: full many a thousand of the host yonder this horn shall smite and slay.

17 The hot offering hath been warmed with fire: this offering availeth against a thousand men. Let God the Avenger and the Destroyer destroy that armament.

18 Their portion be the fire of death, hunger, exhaustion, slaughter, fear. With your entangling snares and nets, O Avenger, O Mighty, slay that host.

19 Fly, conquered, in alarm, ye foes, run driven away by the prayer! Let not one man escape of those when routed by God, Lord of Prayer.

20 Down fall their weapons on the ground: no strength be theirs to point a shaft: then in their dreadful terror let their arrows wound their vital parts.

21 Let heaven and earth roar out in wrath against them, and air with all the angels in concert. Let them not find a surety or a refuge, but torn away go down to death together.

22 The mules of the angels' car are heaven's four quarters; their hooves are sacred cakes, the air its body. Its sides are heaven and earth, its reins the seasons, voice is its hood, its grooms are sky's mid-regions.

23 The year is the car, the full year the seat for driving, the radiant sky the pole, the chariot's front is fire, the warrior is the strong champion, and the moon the driver.

24 Hence conquer, conquer! be thou the victor! Let these be conquerors and those be conquered. Good luck to these, ill luck to those men yonder!