Psalms
The Psalter is Israel’s hymnbook: lament, praise, thanksgiving, royal psalms, and wisdom. It trains the heart to speak to God in trouble and in joy, and it points ahead to the Messiah.
English Revised Version
Psalms 42
1As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? 3My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? 4These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I went with the throng, and led them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping holyday. 5Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the health of his countenance. 6O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore do I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and the Hermons, from the hill Mizar. 7Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. 8Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, even a prayer unto the God of my life. 9I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? 10As with a sword in my bones, mine adversaries reproach me; while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? 11Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
English Revised Version (1885). Public domain. The 1881/1885 British revision of the King James Version; parent of the ASV.