This is one of my favorite
Tehillim, until I get to
Verse 7 and
beyond.
A while back, a devout Episcopalian friend asked me how I respond to these hatemongering passages in Tanach. "Do you try to ignore them?" My response: "No, I actively despise them!"
To encounter one of these passages in one's own religious tradition is to be like Jacob wrestling with the angel. We have to struggle against them if we are to derive any blessing.
Here's the
Metsudah Tehillim version:
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and also wept, when we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in its midst, we hung our harps.
For there our captors demanded of us words of song, and our tormentors asked of us (with) mirth;
'Sing to us from the song(s) of Zion.'
How shall we sing the song of Adonoy on alien soil?
If I ever forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget (its movement).
May my tongue cleave to my palate, if I set not Jerusalem above my highest joy.
Remember, Adonoy, to the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, (it was they) who said,
'Raze it, raze it to its very foundation!'
Daughter of Babylon, it is you who are the annihilated one;
fortunate is he who will repay you for all you have done to us.
Fortunate is he who will take and dash your little ones against the rock."
[Editor's note (Gz), 12/8/2002: Consolidated two writeups here.]