Psalms of the sons of Korah …

Psalms 42–45 WEB

^42:1As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. ²My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? ³My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” ⁴These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I used to go with the crowd, and led them to God’s house, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day. ⁵Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence. ⁶My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar. ⁷Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me. ⁸The LORD will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: a prayer to the God of my life. ⁹I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” ¹⁰As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” ¹¹Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.

^43:1Vindicate me, God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Oh, deliver me from deceitful and wicked men. ²For you are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? ³Oh, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill, to your tents. ⁴Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy. I will praise you on the harp, God, my God. ⁵Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him: my Savior, my helper, and my God.

^44:1We have heard with our ears, God; our fathers have told us what work you did in their days, in the days of old. ²You drove out the nations with your hand, but you planted them. You afflicted the peoples, but you spread them abroad. ³For they didn’t get the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; but your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, because you were favorable to them. ⁴God, you are my King. Command victories for Jacob! ⁵Through you, we will push down our adversaries. Through your name, we will tread down those who rise up against us. ⁶For I will not trust in my bow, neither will my sword save me. ⁷But you have saved us from our adversaries, and have shamed those who hate us. ⁸In God we have made our boast all day long. We will give thanks to your name forever. Selah. ⁹But now you rejected us, and brought us to dishonor, and don’t go out with our armies. ¹⁰You make us turn back from the adversary. Those who hate us take plunder for themselves. ¹¹You have made us like sheep for food, and have scattered us among the nations. ¹²You sell your people for nothing, and have gained nothing from their sale. ¹³You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and a derision to those who are around us. ¹⁴You make us a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples. ¹⁵All day long my dishonor is before me, and shame covers my face, ¹⁶at the taunt of one who reproaches and verbally abuses, because of the enemy and the avenger. ¹⁷All this has come on us, yet we haven’t forgotten you. We haven’t been false to your covenant. ¹⁸Our heart has not turned back, neither have our steps strayed from your path, ¹⁹though you have crushed us in the haunt of jackals, and covered us with the shadow of death. ²⁰If we have forgotten the name of our God, or spread out our hands to a strange god, ²¹won’t God search this out? For he knows the secrets of the heart. ²²Yes, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter. ²³Wake up! Why do you sleep, Lord? Arise! Don’t reject us forever. ²⁴Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression? ²⁵For our soul is bowed down to the dust. Our body clings to the earth. ²⁶Rise up to help us. Redeem us for your loving kindness’ sake.

^45:1My heart overflows with a noble theme. I recite my verses for the king. My tongue is like the pen of a skillful writer. ²You are the most excellent of the sons of men. Grace has anointed your lips, therefore God has blessed you forever. ³Strap your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your splendor and your majesty. ⁴In your majesty ride on victoriously on behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness. Let your right hand display awesome deeds. ⁵Your arrows are sharp. The nations fall under you, with arrows in the heart of the king’s enemies. ⁶Your throne, God, is forever and ever. A scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom. ⁷You have loved righteousness, and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows. ⁸All your garments smell like myrrh, aloes, and cassia. Out of ivory palaces stringed instruments have made you glad. ⁹Kings’ daughters are among your honorable women. At your right hand the queen stands in gold of Ophir. ¹⁰Listen, daughter, consider, and turn your ear. Forget your own people, and also your father’s house. ¹¹So the king will desire your beauty, honor him, for he is your lord. ¹²The daughter of Tyre comes with a gift. The rich among the people entreat your favor. ¹³The princess inside is all glorious. Her clothing is interwoven with gold. ¹⁴She shall be led to the king in embroidered work. The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to you. ¹⁵With gladness and rejoicing they shall be led. They shall enter into the king’s palace. ¹⁶Your sons will take the place of your fathers. You shall make them princes in all the earth. ¹⁷I will make your name to be remembered in all generations. Therefore the peoples shall give you thanks forever and ever.

Psalm 47 WEB

¹Oh clap your hands, all you nations. Shout to God with the voice of triumph! ²For the LORD Most High is awesome. He is a great King over all the earth. ³He subdues nations under us, and peoples under our feet. ⁴He chooses our inheritance for us, the glory of Jacob whom he loved. Selah. ⁵God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet. ⁶Sing praises to God! Sing praises! Sing praises to our King! Sing praises! ⁷For God is the King of all the earth. Sing praises with understanding. ⁸God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne. ⁹The princes of the peoples are gathered together, the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God. He is greatly exalted!

Psalm 49 WEB

¹Hear this, all you peoples. Listen, all you inhabitants of the world, ²both low and high, rich and poor together. ³My mouth will speak words of wisdom. My heart will utter understanding. ⁴I will incline my ear to a proverb. I will solve my riddle on the harp. ⁵Why should I fear in the days of evil, when iniquity at my heels surrounds me? ⁶Those who trust in their wealth, and boast in the multitude of their riches— ⁷none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give God a ransom for him. ⁸For the redemption of their life is costly, no payment is ever enough, ⁹that he should live on forever, that he should not see corruption. ¹⁰For he sees that wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless perish, and leave their wealth to others. ¹¹Their inward thought is that their houses will endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands after themselves. ¹²But man, despite his riches, doesn’t endure. He is like the animals that perish. ¹³This is the destiny of those who are foolish, and of those who approve their sayings. Selah. ¹⁴They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion. ¹⁵But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah. ¹⁶Don’t be afraid when a man is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased; ¹⁷for when he dies he will carry nothing away. His glory won’t descend after him. ¹⁸Though while he lived he blessed his soul— and men praise you when you do well for yourself— ¹⁹he shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see the light. ²⁰A man who has riches without understanding, is like the animals that perish.

Psalm 84 WEB

¹How lovely are your dwellings, LORD of Armies! ²My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of the LORD. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. ³Yes, the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young, near your altars, LORD of Armies, my King, and my God. ⁴Blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are always praising you. Selah. ⁵Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage. ⁶Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs. Yes, the autumn rain covers it with blessings. ⁷They go from strength to strength. Every one of them appears before God in Zion. ⁸LORD, God of Armies, hear my prayer. Listen, God of Jacob. Selah. ⁹Behold, God our shield, look at the face of your anointed. ¹⁰For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. ¹¹For the LORD God is a sun and a shield. The LORD will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly. ¹²LORD of Armies, blessed is the man who trusts in you.

Psalms 87–88 WEB

^87:1His foundation is in the holy mountains. ²The LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. ³Glorious things are spoken about you, city of God. Selah. ⁴I will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me. Behold, Philistia, Tyre, and also Ethiopia: “This one was born there.” ⁵Yes, of Zion it will be said, “This one and that one was born in her;” the Most High himself will establish her. ⁶The LORD will count, when he writes up the peoples, “This one was born there.” Selah. ⁷Those who sing as well as those who dance say, “All my springs are in you.”

^88:1LORD, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you. ²Let my prayer enter into your presence. Turn your ear to my cry. ³For my soul is full of troubles. My life draws near to Sheol. ⁴I am counted among those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help, ⁵set apart among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more. They are cut off from your hand. ⁶You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. ⁷Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have afflicted me with all your waves. Selah. ⁸You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape. ⁹My eyes are dim from grief. I have called on you daily, LORD. I have spread out my hands to you. ¹⁰Do you show wonders to the dead? Do the departed spirits rise up and praise you? Selah. ¹¹Is your loving kindness declared in the grave? Or your faithfulness in Destruction? ¹²Are your wonders made known in the dark? Or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? ¹³But to you, LORD, I have cried. In the morning, my prayer comes before you. ¹⁴LORD, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? ¹⁵I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer your terrors, I am distracted. ¹⁶Your fierce wrath has gone over me. Your terrors have cut me off. ¹⁷They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me. ¹⁸You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness.