Psalm 42-49

Evangelical Heritage Version

¹ As a doe pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and appear before God?^[d]
3 My tears have been food for me day and night,
while people are saying to me all day,
“Where is your God?”

⁵ Why are you so depressed,^[e] O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I will again praise him
    for salvation from his presence.^[f]

⁶ My God, my soul is depressed within me.
Therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan,
from the heights of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
⁷ Deep calls to deep in the roar of your rapids.
All your breakers and your waves have swept over me.
⁸ By day the Lord commands his mercy,
and at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life.
⁹ I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go around mourning because of oppression by the enemy?”
¹⁰ It is like breaking my bones when my foes taunt me.
All day long they say to me, “Where is your God?”

¹¹ Why are you so depressed, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I will again praise him
    for my salvation from the face of my God.^[g]

¹ Judge me justly, O God,
and plead my case against an ungodly nation.
Rescue me from the deceitful, wicked man.
² I know you are God, my stronghold.
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go around mourning
    because of oppression by the enemy?
³ Send out your light and your truth.
Let them guide me.
Let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to your dwelling.
⁴ Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and gladness.
Then I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.

⁵ Why are you so depressed, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I will again praise him
    for my salvation from the face of my God.^[h]

¹ God, our ears have heard.
Our fathers have told us the work you performed
    in their days, in days long ago.
² By your hand you drove out the nations,
but you planted your people.
You crushed the peoples,
but you sent your people forward.
³ For it was not by their sword
    that they took possession of the land.
It was not their arm that saved them.
It was your right hand and your arm,
and the light from your face,
because you took pleasure in them.

⁴ You are the one who is my King, O God.
Command victories for Jacob.
⁵ Through you we drive back our foes.
Through your name we trample our adversaries.
⁶ For I do not trust in my bow,
and my sword does not save me.
⁷ But you save us from our foes,
and you put those who hate us to shame.
⁸ In God we make our boast all day,
and we will praise your name forever. Interlude

⁹ But now you have rejected and humbled us,
and you do not go out with our armies.
¹⁰ You made us turn back before the foe,
and those who hate us have taken plunder for themselves.
¹¹ You give us up for food like sheep,
and you have scattered us among the nations.
¹² You sold your people for no great price,
and you have not profited from their sale.
¹³ You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,
scorn and ridicule to those around us.
¹⁴ You have made us a laughingstock among the nations,
a reason for the peoples to shake their heads.
¹⁵ All day my disgrace is right in front of me,
and the shame on my face covers me,
¹⁶ because of the voice of the slanderer and reviler,
because of the enemy and avenger.
¹⁷ All this came on us, though we had not forgotten you.
We had not been false to your covenant.
¹⁸ Our hearts had not turned back.
Our steps had not slipped off your path.
¹⁹ But you crushed us and made us a home for jackals,
and you covered us with the shadow of death.
²⁰ If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
²¹ would not God have discovered this,
since he knows the secrets of the heart?
²² Yet for your sake we are killed all day long.
We are considered sheep to be slaughtered.

²³ Get up! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Wake up!
Do not reject us forever.
²⁴ Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our misery and our oppression?
²⁵ For our souls bow down to the dust.
Our bellies cling to the earth.
²⁶ Stand up! Help us!
Redeem us because of your mercy.

¹ My heart is bubbling over with a beautiful theme.
I am reciting my works for the King.
My tongue is the pen of a rapid writer.

² You are the most beautiful of the sons of Adam.
Grace is poured out on your lips.
Therefore God has blessed you forever.

¹⁰ Hear, O daughter, look and listen.
Forget your people and your father’s house,
¹¹ because the king desires your beauty.
Because he is your lord, bow down to him.
¹² Then the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift.
The richest people will seek your favor.
¹³ The princess, who waits inside, is all glorious.
Her dress is interwoven with gold.
¹⁴ In embroidered garments she is led to the king.
Virgins who follow her as attendants are brought to you.
¹⁵ They are brought with joyful celebration.
They enter the palace of the king.

¹⁶ Your sons will take the place of your fathers.
You will make them princes in all the earth.
¹⁷ I will preserve the memory of your name through all generations.
Therefore peoples will praise you forever and ever.

¹ God is our refuge and strength,
a helper who can always be found in times of trouble.
² That is why we will not fear when the earth dissolves
and when the mountains tumble into the heart of the sea.
³ Its waters roar and foam.
The mountains quake when it rises. Interlude

⁴ There is a river—its streams bring joy to the city of God,
to the holy dwelling of the Most High.
⁵ God is in her. She will not fall.
God will help her at daybreak.
⁶ Nations are in turmoil. Kingdoms fall.
God raises his voice. The earth melts.
⁷ The Lord of Armies is with us.
The God of Jacob is a fortress for us. Interlude
⁸ Come, look at the works of the Lord.
What a wasteland he has made of the earth!
⁹ He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.
He shatters the bow. He cuts up the spear.
He burns the carts^[l] with fire.
¹⁰ “Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations.
I will be exalted on the earth.”

¹ All you peoples, clap your hands!
Shout to God! Sing a loud song!

¹ The Lord is great. He deserves to be praised
    in the city of our God, on his holy mountain.
² His mountain is lofty and beautiful, the joy of the whole earth.
Mount Zion, the northern mountain, is the city of the Great King.
³ God is in her citadels.
He is famous as her fortress.

⁴ Look! See! The kings came together.
They advanced together.
⁵ They saw. Yes, they were amazed.
They were terrified. They were put to flight.
⁶ Trembling seized them there,
pain like a woman giving birth.
⁷ You shattered them with an east wind, like ships of Tarshish.

⁸ What we have heard, we now have also seen:
    In the city of the Lord of Armies,
    in the city of our God, Interlude
    God establishes her forever.
⁹ Inside your temple, O God, we meditate on your mercy.
¹⁰ Your praise, O God, reaches to the ends of the earth,
just as your fame does.
Righteousness fills your right hand.
¹¹ Mount Zion rejoices.
The daughters of Judah^[n] celebrate because of your judgments.
¹² Go around Zion. Yes, go all the way around her.
Count her towers. ¹³ Consider her rampart.^[o]
View her citadels, so that you may tell the next generation about them.
¹⁴ For this God is our God forever and ever.
He will guide us beyond death.^[p]

¹ Hear this, all you peoples.
Pay attention, all you inhabitants of this world,
² all you children of Adam, all mankind,
rich and poor alike.
³ My mouth will speak wisdom.
The meditation of my heart will give understanding.
⁴ I will listen carefully to wise teaching.
With a lyre I will explain deep truths.

⁵ Why should I fear days of trouble,
days when the wickedness of my pursuers surrounds me?^[q]
6 They trust in their wealth.
They place their confidence in the abundance of their riches.
⁷ But no one can by any means redeem himself.^[r]
He cannot give God a ransom for himself—
⁸ (Yes, the ransom for their souls is costly.
Any payment would fall short.)^[s]
9 —so that he could live on forever and not see the pit.
¹⁰ Yes, we can see that wise men die.
The fool and the senseless alike perish,
and they leave their wealth to others.
¹¹ They think their houses will remain forever,
their dwellings for generation after generation^[t]
because they named lands after themselves.
¹² But man, though he has riches, does not even spend a night here.
He is like the animals that perish.
¹³ This way of theirs is foolishness,
but their followers approve of what they say. Interlude
¹⁴ They are like a flock destined for the grave.
Death will be their shepherd.
The upright will rule over them in the morning.
Their bodies will be consumed by the grave,
    far from their mansions.^[u]

¹⁵ But surely God will redeem my life from the power of the grave.
Yes, he will take me to himself. Interlude

¹⁶ Do not be afraid when a man grows rich,
when the glory of his house increases,
¹⁷ because when he dies, he cannot take anything along.
His glory will not go down with him.
¹⁸ Throughout his life he congratulates himself:
“People praise you because you have done so well for yourself.”
¹⁹ He will go to the gathering place of his fathers.
They will never see the light!
²⁰ A man who has riches but does not understand
    is like the animals that perish.