Reading: Psalm 42-43

42 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
    so pants my soul for you, O God.
² My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
³ My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”
⁴ These 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.

⁵ Why 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 ⁶ and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
    therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
    from Mount Mizar.
⁷ Deep calls to deep
    at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
    have gone over me.
⁸ By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.
⁹ I say to God, my rock:
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
    because of the oppression of the enemy?”
¹⁰ As with a deadly wound in my bones,
    my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”

¹¹ Why 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.

43 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
    against an ungodly people,
from the deceitful and unjust man
    deliver me!
² For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
    why have you rejected me?
Why do I go about mourning
    because of the oppression of the enemy?

³ Send out your light and your truth;
    let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
    and to your dwelling!
⁴ Then I will go to the altar of God,
    to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
    O God, my God.

⁵ Why 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.