[1] As the deer pants [longingly] for the water brooks, So my soul pants [longingly] for You, O God. [2] My soul (my life, my inner self) thirsts for God, for the living God. When will I come and see the face of God? [3] My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” [4] These things I [vividly] remember as I pour out my soul; How I used to go along before the great crowd of people and lead them in procession to the house of God [like a choirmaster before his singers, timing the steps to the music and the chant of the song], With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a great crowd keeping a festival. [5] Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become restless and disturbed within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence. [6] O my God, my soul is in despair within me [the burden more than I can bear]; Therefore I will [fervently] remember You from the land of the Jordan And the peaks of [Mount] Hermon, from Mount Mizar. [7] Deep calls to deep at the [thundering] sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. [8] Yet the LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night His song will be with me, A prayer to the God of my life. [9] I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” [10] As a crushing of my bones [with a sword], my adversaries taunt me, While they say continually to me, “Where is your God?” [11] Why are you in despair, O my soul? Why have you become restless and disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.
