Book Two

Why Are You Cast Down, O My Soul?

To the choirmaster. A Maskil1 of the Sons of Korah.

¹As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

²My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God?2

³My tears have been my food

day and night,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

⁴These things I remember,

as I pour out my soul:

how I would go with the throng

and lead them in procession to the house of God

with glad shouts and songs of praise,

a multitude keeping festival.

⁵Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation3 ⁶and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;

therefore I remember you

from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,

from Mount Mizar.

⁷Deep calls to deep

at the roar of your waterfalls;

all your breakers and your waves

have gone over me.

⁸By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,

and at night his song is with me,

a prayer to the God of my life.

⁹I say to God, my rock:

“Why have you forgotten me?

Why do I go mourning

because of the oppression of the enemy?”

¹⁰As with a deadly wound in my bones,

my adversaries taunt me,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

¹¹Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation and my God.