Psalm 42 - 44

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My Soul Thirsts for God

For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.

As the deer pants for the water brooks,

So my soul pants for You, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;

When shall I come and appear before God?

My tears have been my food day and night,

While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me.

For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God,

With the sound of a shout of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you in despair, O my soul?

And why are you disturbed within me?

Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,

For the salvation of His presence.

O my God, my soul is in despair within me;

Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan

And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;

All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.

By day, Yahweh will command His lovingkindness;

And by night, His song will be with me,

A prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me?

Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”

As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries reproach me,

While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

Why are you in despair, O my soul?

And why are you disturbed within me?

Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,

The salvation of my presence and my God.

Send Out Your Light and Your Truth

Give justice to me, O God, and plead my case against an unholy nation;

Oh protect me from the deceitful and unrighteous man!

For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me?

Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

Oh send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me;

Let them bring me to Your holy mountain

And to Your dwelling places.

Then I will go to the altar of God,

To God my exceeding joy;

And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God.

Why are you in despair, O my soul?

And why are you disturbed within me?

Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,

The salvation of my presence and my God.

Rise Up, Be Our Help

For the choir director. Of the sons of Korah. A Maskil.

O God, we have heard with our ears,

Our fathers have recounted to us

The work that You did in their days,

In the days of old.

You with Your own hand dispossessed the nations;

Then You planted them;

You afflicted the peoples,

Then You cast them out.

For by their own sword they did not possess the land,

And their own arm did not save them,

But Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence,

For You favored them.

You are my King, O God;

Command salvation for Jacob.

Through You we will push back our adversaries;

Through Your name we will tread down those who rise up against us.

For I will not trust in my bow,

And my sword will not save me.

But You have saved us from our adversaries,

And You have put to shame those who hate us.

In God we have boasted all day long,

And we will give thanks to Your name forever. Selah.

Yet You have rejected us and brought us to dishonor,

And do not go out with our armies.

You cause us to turn back from the adversary;

And those who hate us have plundered us for themselves.

You give us as sheep to be eaten

And have scattered us among the nations.

You sell Your people for no amount,

And You have not profited from their price.

You make us a reproach to our neighbors,

A mockery and a derision to those around us.

You make us a byword among the nations,

A laughingstock among the peoples.

All day long my dishonor is before me

And the shame of my face has covered me,

Because of the voice of him who reproaches and reviles,

Because of the presence of the enemy and the avenger.

All this has come upon us, but we have not forgotten You,

And we have not dealt falsely with Your covenant.

Our heart has not turned back,

Nor have our steps deviated from Your path,

Yet You have crushed us in a place of jackals

And covered us with the shadow of death.

If we had forgotten the name of our God

Or spread our hands to a strange god,

Would not God find this out?

For He knows the secrets of the heart.

But for Your sake we are killed all day long;

We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

Arouse Yourself, why do You sleep, O Lord?

Awake, do not reject us forever.

Why do You hide Your face

And forget our affliction and our oppression?

For our soul has sunk down into the dust;

Our body cleaves to the earth.

Rise up, be our help,

And redeem us for the sake of Your lovingkindness.

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