Psalms 42 - 53
42 - 43
As the hind longs for the running streams,
so do I long for thee, O God.
With my whole being I thirst for God, the living God.
When shall I come to God and appear in his presence?
Day and night, tears are in my food;
'Where is your God?' they ask me all day long.
As I pour out my soul in distress, I call to mind
how I marched in the ranks of the great to the house of God,
among exultant shouts of praise, the clamour of the pilgrims.
How deep I am sunk in misery,
groaning in my distress:
yet I will wait for God;
I will praise him continually,
my deliverer, my God.
I am sunk in misery, therefore will I remember thee,
though from the Hermons and the springs of Jordan,
and from the hill of Mizar,
deep calls to deep in the roar of thy cataracts,
and all thy waves, all thy breakers, pass over me.
The LORD makes his unfailing love shine forth
alike by day and night;
his praise on my lips is a prayer
to the God of my life.
I will say to God my rock, 'Why hast thou forgotten me?'
Why must I go like a mourner because my foes oppress me?
My enemies taunt me, jeering at my misfortunes;
'Where is your God?' they ask me all day long.
How deep I am sunk in misery,
groaning in my distress:
yet I will wait for God;
I will praise him continually,
my deliverance, my God.
43 Plead my cause and give me judgement against an impious race
Save me from malignant men and liars, O God.
Thou, O God, art my refuge; why hast thou rejected me?
Why must I go like a mourner because my foes oppress me?
Send forth thy light and thy truth to be my guide
and lead me to thy holy hill, to thy tabernacle,
then I shall come to the altar of God, the God of my joy,
and praise thee on the harp, O God, thou God of my delight.
How deep I am sunk in misery,
groaning in my distress:
yet I will wait for God;
I will praise him continually,
my deliverer, my God.
44
O God, we have heard for ourselves,
our fathers have told us
all the deeds which thou didst in their days,
all the work of thy hand in days of old.
Thou didst plant them in the land and drive the nations out,
thou didst make them strike root, breaking up the peoples;
it was not our fathers' swords that won them the land,
nor their arm that gave them the victory,
but thy right hand and thy arm
and the light of thy presence; such was thy favour to them.
Thou art my king and my God;
at thy bidding Jacob is victorious.
By thy help we will throw back our enemies,
in thy name we will trample down our adversaries.
I will not trust in my bow,
nor will my sword win me the victory;
for thou dost deliver us from our foes
and put all our enemies to shame.
In God have we gloried all day long,
and we will praise thy name for ever.
But now thou hast rejected and humbled us
and dost no longer lead our armies into battle.
Thou hast hurled us back before the enemy,
and our foes plunder us as they will.
Thou hast given us up to be butchered like sheep
and hast scattered us among the nations.
Thou hast sold thy people for next to nothing
and had no profit from the sale.
Thou hast exposed us to the taunts of our neighbours,
to the mockery and contempt of all around.
Thou hast made us a byword among the nations,
and the peoples shake their heads at us;
so my disgrace confronts me all day long,
and am covered with shame
at the shouts of those who taunt and abuse me
as the enemy takes his revenge.
Al this has befallen us, but we do not forget thee
and have not betrayed thy covenant;
we have not gone back on our purpose,
nor have our feet strayed from thy path.
Yet thou hast crushed us as the sea-serpent was crushed
and covered us with the darkness of death.
If we had forgotten the name of our God
and spread our hands in prayer to any other,
would not God find this out,
for he knows the secret of the heart?
Because of thee we are done to death all day long,
and are treated as sheep for slaughter.
Bestir thyself, Lord; why dost thou sleep?
Awake, do not reject us for ever.
Why dost thou hide thy face,
heedless of our misery and our sufferings?
For we sink down to the dust
and lie prone on the earth.
Arise and come to our help;
for thy love's sake set us free.
45
My heart is stirred by a noble theme,
in a king's honour I utter the song I have made,
and my tongue runs like the pen of an expert scribe.
You surpass all mankind in beauty,
your lips are moulded in grace,
so you are blessed by God for ever.
With your sword ready at your side, warrior king,
your limbs resplendent in their royal armour,
ride on to execute true sentence and just judgement.
Your right hand shall show you a scene of terror:
your sharp arrows flying, nations beneath your feet,
the courage of the king's foes melting away!
Your throne is like God's throne, eternal,
your royal sceptre a sceptre of righteousness.
You have loved right and hated wrong;
so God, your God has anointed you
above your fellows with oil, the token of joy.
Your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and powder of aloes,
and the music of strings greets you
from a palace panelled with ivory.
A princess takes her place among the noblest of your women,
a royal lady at your side in gold of 0phir.
Listen, my daughter, hear my words
and consider them:
forget your own people and your father's house;
and, when the king desires your beauty,
remember that he is your lord.
Do him obeisance, daughter of Tyre,
and the richest in the land will court you with gifts.
In the palace honour awaits her;
she is a king's daughter,
arrayed in cloth-of-gold richly embroidered.
Virgins shall follow her into the presence of the king;
her companions shall be brought to her,
escorted with the noise of revels and rejoicing
as they enter the king's palace.
You shall have sons, O king, in place of your forefathers
and will make them rulers over all the land.
I will declare your fame to all generations;
therefore the nations will praise you for ever and ever.
46
God is our shelter and our refuge,
a timely help in trouble;
so we are not afraid when the earth heaves
and the mountains are hurled into the sea,
when its waters seethe in tumult
and the mountains quake before his majesty.
There is a river whose streams gladden the city of God,
which the Most High has made his holy dwelling;
God is in that city; she will not be overthrown,
and he will help her at the break of day.
Nations are in tumult, kingdoms hurled down;
when he thunders, the earth surges like the sea.
The LORD of Hosts is with us,
the God of Jacob our high stronghold.
Come and see what the LORD has done,
the devastation he has brought upon earth,
from end to end of the earth he stamps out war:
he breaks the bow, he snaps the spear
and burns the shield in the fire.
Let be then; learn that I am God,
high over the nations, high above the earth.
The LORD of Hosts is with us,
the God of Jacob our high stronghold.
47
Clap your hands, all you nations;
acclaim our God with shouts of joy.
How fearful is the LORD Most High,
great sovereign over all the earth!
He lays the nations prostrate beneath us,
he lays peoples under our feet;
but chose our patrimony for us,
the pride of Jacob whom he loved.
God has gone up with shouts of acclamation,
the LORD has gone up with a fanfare of trumpets.
Praise God, praise him with psalms;
praise our king, praise him with psalms.
God is king of all the earth;
sing psalms with all your art.
God reigns of the nations,
God is seated on his holy throne.
The princes of the nations assemble
with the families of Abraham's line;
for the mighty ones of earth belong to God,
and he is raised above them all.
48
The LORD is great and worthy of our praise
in the city of our God, upon his holy hill.
Fair and lofty, the joy of the whole earth
is Zion's hill, like the farthest reaches of the north,
the hill of the great King's city.
In her palaces God is known for a tower of strength.
See how the kings all gather round her,
marching on in company.
They are struck with amazement when they see her,
they are filled with alarm and panic;
they are seized with trembling,
they toss in pain like a woman in labour,
like the ships of Tarshish
when an east wind wrecks them.
All we had heard we saw with our own eyes
in the city of the LORD of Hosts,
in the city of our God,
the city which God plants firm for evermore.
O God, we re-enact the story of thy true love
within thy temple;
the praise thy name deserves, O God,
is heard at earth's farthest bounds.
Thy hand is charged with justice,
and the hill of Zion rejoices,
Judah's daughter-cities exult
in thy judgements.
Make the round of Zion in procession,
count the number of her towers,
take good note of her ramparts,
pass her palaces in review,
that you may tell generations yet to come:
Such is God,
our God for ever and ever;
he shall be our guide eternally.
49
Hear this, all you nations;
listen, all who inhabit this world,
all mankind, every living man,
rich and poor alike;
for the words that I speak are wise,
my thoughtful heart is full of understanding.
I will set my ear to catch the moral of the story
and tell on the harp how I read the riddle;
Why should I be afraid of evil times,
beset by the wickedness of treacherous foes,
who trust in their riches
and boast of their great wealth?
Alas! no man can ever ransom himself
nor pay God the price of that release;
his ransom would cost too much,
for ever beyond his power to pay,
the ransom that would let him live on always
and never see the pit of death.
But remember this: wise men must die;
stupid men, brutish men, all perish.
The grave is their eternal home,
their dwelling for all time to come;
they may give their own names to estates,
but they must leave their riches to others.
For men are like oxen whose life cannot last,
they are like cattle whose time is sort.
Such is the fate of foolish men
and of all who seek to please them:
like sheep they run headlong into Sheol, the land of
Death;
he is their shepherd and urges them on;
their flesh must rot away
and their bodies be wasted by Sheol,
stripped of all honour.
But God will ransom my life,
he will take me from the power of Sheol.
Do not envy a man when he grows rich,
when the wealth of his family increases;
for he will take nothing when he dies,
and the wealth will not go to him.
Though in his lifetime he counts himself happy
and men praise him in his prosperity,
he will go to join the company of his forefathers
who will never again see the light.
For men are like oxen whose life cannot last,
they are like cattle whose time is short.
50
God, the LORD God, has spoken
and summoned the world from the rising to the setting sun.
God shines out from Zion, perfect in beauty.
Our God is coming and will not keep silence:
consuming fire runs before him
abd wreathes him closely round.
He summons heaven on high and earth
to the judgement of his people:
'Gather to me my loyal servants,
all who by sacrifice have made a covenant with me.'
The heavens proclaim his justice, for God himself is the judge.
Listen, my people, and I will speak;
I will bear witness against you O Israel:
I am God, your God,
shall I not find fault with your sacrifices,
though your offerings are before me always?
I need take no young bull from your house,
no he-goat from your folds;
for all the beasts of the forest are mine
and the cattle in thousands of my hills.
I know every bird on those hills,
the teeming life of the fields is my care.
If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and all that is in it are mine.
Shall I eat the flesh of your bulls
or drink the blood of he-goats?
Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and pay your vows to the Most High.
If you call upon me in time of trouble,
I will come to your rescue, and you shall honour me.
God's word to the wicked man is this:
What right have you to recite my laws
and make so free with the words of my covenant,
you who hate correction
and turn your back when I am speaking?
If you meet a thief, you choose him as your friend;
you make common cause with adulterers;
you charge your mouth with wickedness
and harness your tongue to slander.
You are for ever talking against your brother,
stabbing your own mother's son in the back.
All this you have done, and shall I keep silence?
You thought I was another like yourself,
but point by point i will rebuke you to your face.
Think well on this, you who forget God,
or I will tear you in pieces and no one shall save you.
He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving
does me due honour,
and to him who follows my way
I will show the salvation of God.
51
Be gracious to me, O God in thy true love;
in the fullness of thy mercy blot out my misdeeds.
Wash away all my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.
For well I know my misdeeds,
and my sins confront me all the day long.
Against thee, thee only, I have sinned
and done what displeases thee,
so that thou mayest be proved right in thy charge
and just in passing sentence.
In iniquity I was brought to birth
and my mother conceived me in sin;
yet, though thou hast hidden the truth in darkness,
through this mystery thou dost teach me wisdom.
Take hyssop and sprinkle me, that I may be clean;
wash me, that I may become whiter than snow;
let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness,
let the bones dance which thou hast broken.
Turn away thy face from my sins
and blot out all my guilt.
create a pure heart in me, O God,
and give me a new and steadfast spirit;
do not drive me from thy presence
or take thy holy spirit from me;
revive in me the joy of thy deliverance
and grant me a willing spirit to uphold me.
I will teach transgressors the ways that lead to thee,
and sinners shall return to thee again.
O LORD God, my deliverer, save me from bloodshed,
and I will sing the praises of thy justice.
Open my lips, O Lord,
that my mouth may proclaim thy praise.
Thou hast no delight in sacrifice;
if I brought thee an offering, thou wouldst not accept it.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a wounded heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Let it be thy pleasure to do good to Zion,
to build anew the walls of Jerusalem.
Then only shalt thou delight in the appointed sacrifices;
then shall young bulls be offered on thy altar
52
Why make your wickedness your boast, you man of might,
forging wild lies all day against God's loyal servant?
Your slanderous tongue is sharp as a razor.
You love evil and not good,
falsehood, not speaking the truth;
cruel gossip you love and slanderous talk.
So may God pull you down to the ground,
sweep you away, leave you ruined and homeless,
uprooted from the land of the living.
The righteous will look on, awestruck,
and laugh at his plight:
'This is he man', they say,
'who does not make God his refuge,
but trusts in his great wealth
and takes refuge in wild lies.'
But I am like a spreading olive-tree in God's house;
for I trust in God's true love for ever and ever.
I will praise thee for ever for what thou hast done,
and glorify thy name among the loyal servants;
for that is good.
53
The impious fool says in his heart,
'There is no God.'
How vile men are, how deprave and loathsome;
not one does anything good!
God looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if any act wisely,
if any seek out God.
But all are unfaithful, all are rotten to the core;
not one does anything good,
no, not even one.
Shall they not rue it,
these evildoers who devour my people
as men devour bread,
and never call upon God?
There they were in dire alarm
when God scattered them.
The crimes of the Godless were frustrated;
for God had rejected them.
If only Israel's deliverance might come out of Zion!
When God restores his people's fortunes,
let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
The New English Bible (with Apocrypha)
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Posted Jun 28, 2019, 10:03 AM UTC
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