Book Two
42
Psalm 42 – Yearning for God
For the leader. A maskil of the Korahites.
1 Like the hart which longs
for brooks of water,
I long
for you, God.
2 I thirst for God,
for my living God.
When shall I enter in,
and see the face of God?
3 My tears have been my food
by day and by night;
for they say to me all the day long,
‘Where is your God?’
4 My heart floods with sorrow,
as I call to mind:
how I used to pass on with the throng,
at their head, to the house of God,
with glad shouts and giving of thanks,
in the throng who kept festival.
5 Why am I downcast?
Why this moaning within me?
Hope in God;
for yet will I praise him,
my help, my God.
6 I am sunk in my misery;
I will therefore call you to mind
from the land of Jordan and Hermon,
the mountain Mizar.
7 Flood is calling to flood
at the noise of your cataracts;
all your waves and your breakers
have passed over me.
8 In the day I cry to the Lord
to summon his kindness;
and the song that I sing in the night
is a prayer to the living God.
9 I say to God my rock,
‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk so sadly,
so hard pressed by the foe?’
10 It pierces me to the heart
to hear the enemy’s taunts,
as all the day long they say to me,
‘Where is your God?’
11 Why am I downcast?
Why this moaning within me?
Hope in God;
for yet will I praise him,
my help, my God.