Psalms 40–44

Psalms 40–44 WEB

^40:1I waited patiently for the LORD. He turned to me, and heard my cry. ²He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand. ³He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD. ⁴Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, and doesn’t respect the proud, nor such as turn away to lies. ⁵Many, LORD, my God, are the wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts which are toward us. They can’t be declared back to you. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be counted. ⁶Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire. You have opened my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering. ⁷Then I said, “Behold, I have come. It is written about me in the book in the scroll. ⁸I delight to do your will, my God. Yes, your law is within my heart.” ⁹I have proclaimed glad news of righteousness in the great assembly. Behold, I will not seal my lips, LORD, you know. ¹⁰I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart. I have declared your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness and your truth from the great assembly. ¹¹Don’t withhold your tender mercies from me, LORD. Let your loving kindness and your truth continually preserve me. ¹²For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me. ¹³Be pleased, LORD, to deliver me. Hurry to help me, LORD. ¹⁴Let them be disappointed and confounded together who seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be turned backward and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. ¹⁵Let them be desolate by reason of their shame that tell me, “Aha! Aha!” ¹⁶Let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let such as love your salvation say continually, “Let the LORD be exalted!” ¹⁷But I am poor and needy. May the Lord think about me. You are my help and my deliverer. Don’t delay, my God.

^41:1Blessed is he who considers the poor. The LORD will deliver him in the day of evil. ²The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive. He shall be blessed on the earth, and he will not surrender him to the will of his enemies. ³The LORD will sustain him on his sickbed, and restore him from his bed of illness. ⁴I said, “LORD, have mercy on me! Heal me, for I have sinned against you.” ⁵My enemies speak evil against me: “When will he die, and his name perish?” ⁶If he comes to see me, he speaks falsehood. His heart gathers iniquity to itself. When he goes abroad, he tells it. ⁷All who hate me whisper together against me. They imagine the worst for me. ⁸“An evil disease”, they say, “has afflicted him. Now that he lies he shall rise up no more.” ⁹Yes, my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me. ¹⁰But you, LORD, have mercy on me, and raise me up, that I may repay them. ¹¹By this I know that you delight in me, because my enemy doesn’t triumph over me. ¹²As for me, you uphold me in my integrity, and set me in your presence forever. ¹³Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting and to everlasting! Amen and amen.

^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.