Please Listen...

 Psalm 81:8 Hear, O my people, while I admonish you!
    O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
9 There shall be no strange god among you;
    you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
10 I am the Lord your God,
    who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
    Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
11 “But my people did not listen to my voice;
    Israel would not submit to me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
    to follow their own counsels.
13 Oh, that my people would listen to me,
    that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 I would soon subdue their enemies
    and turn my hand against their foes.

Psalm 82: 2 “How long will you judge unjustly

    and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;

    maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

4 Rescue the weak and the needy;

    deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

In these two psalms of Asaph we find pleas on the part of God for His people to be just.  In the first psalm it is for them to deal justly with God.  He had delivered them from the land of bondage(Egypt), yet they rebelled against Him and served other Gods, refusing to listen to His beckoning to return. In the second psalm above God calls them to act justly toward the weak and oppressed, rescuing them as they had been rescued by Him. They stand in His courtroom guilty and unrepentant. Like the two tablets of the Ten Commandments these twin psalms stand as a complete complaint from God against His rebellious people. In both the question hands: "How long until you repent?"