“Your Waves and Your Billows”
Second Sunday After Pentecost
Psalms 42 and 43
June 22, 2025
Burnt Hills United Methodist Church
Robert Alter's Translation of Psalms 42 and 43
As a deer yearns for streams of water,
so I yearn for You, O God.
My whole being thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and see
the presence of God?
My tears became my bread day and night
as they said to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
These do I recall and pour out my heart:
when I would step in the procession,
when I would march to the house of God
with the sound of glad song of the celebrant throng.
How bent, my being, how you moan for me!
Hope in God, for yet will I acclaim Him
for His rescuing presence.
My God, my being is bent for my plight.
Therefore do I recall you from Jordan land,
from the Hermons and Mount Mizar.
Deep unto deep calls out
at the sound of Your channels.
All Your breakers and waves have surged over me.
By day the LORD ordains His kindness
and by night His song is with me—
prayer to the God of my Life.
I would say to the God my Rock,
“Why have You forgotten me?
Why in gloom do I go, hard-pressed by the foe?
With murder in my bones, my enemies revile me
when they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
How bent, my being, how you moan for me!
Hope in God, for yet will I acclaim Him,
His rescuing presence and my God.
Grant me justice, O God,
take up my case against a faithless nation,
from a man of deceit and wrong free me.
For You, O God, my stronghold,
why should You neglect me?
Why should I go in gloom, pressed by the foe?
Send forth Your light and Your truth.
It is they that will guide me.
They will bring me to Your holy mountain
and to Your dwelling place.
And let me come to God’s altar,
to God, my keenest joy.
And let me acclaim You with the lyre,
O God, my God.
How bent, my being, how you moan for me!
Hope in God, for yet I will acclaim Him,
His rescuing presence and my God.
