Psalm 43-44

New King James Version

Prayer to God in Time of Trouble

43 Vindicate ^(A)me, O God,
And ^(B)plead my cause against an ungodly nation;
Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!
²For You are the God of my strength;
Why do You cast me off?
^(C)Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

³^(D)Oh, send out Your light and Your truth!
Let them lead me;
Let them bring me to ^(E)Your holy hill
And to Your ^[a]tabernacle.
⁴Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And on the harp I will praise You,
O God, my God.

⁵^(F)Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The ^[b]help of my countenance and my God.

Redemption Remembered in Present Dishonor

To the Chief Musician. A ^(G)Contemplation^[c] of the sons of Korah.

44 We have heard with our ears, O God,
^(H)Our fathers have told us,
The deeds You did in their days,
In days of old:
²^(I)You drove out the ^[d]nations with Your hand,
But them You planted;
You afflicted the peoples, and cast them out.
³For ^(J)they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword,
Nor did their own arm save them;
But it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance,
^(K)Because You favored them.

⁴^(L)You are my King, ^[e]O God;
^[f]Command victories for Jacob.
⁵Through You ^(M)we will push down our enemies;
Through Your name we will trample those who rise up against us.
⁶For ^(N)I will not trust in my bow,
Nor shall my sword save me.
⁷But You have saved us from our enemies,
And have put to shame those who hated us.
⁸^(O)In God we boast all day long,
And praise Your name forever. Selah

⁹But ^(P)You have cast us off and put us to shame,
And You do not go out with our armies.
¹⁰You make us ^(Q)turn back from the enemy,
And those who hate us have taken ^[g]spoil for themselves.
¹¹^(R)You have given us up like sheep intended for food,
And have ^(S)scattered us among the nations.
¹²^(T)You sell Your people for next to nothing,
And are not enriched by selling them.

¹³^(U)You make us a reproach to our neighbors,
A scorn and a derision to those all around us.
¹⁴^(V)You make us a byword among the nations,
^(W)A shaking of the head among the peoples.
¹⁵My dishonor is continually before me,
And the shame of my face has covered me,
¹⁶Because of the voice of him who reproaches and reviles,
^(X)Because of the enemy and the avenger.

¹⁷^(Y)All this has come upon us;
But we have not forgotten You,
Nor have we dealt falsely with Your covenant.
¹⁸Our heart has not turned back,
^(Z)Nor have our steps departed from Your way;
¹⁹But You have severely broken us in ^(AA)the place of jackals,
And covered us ^(AB)with the shadow of death.

²⁰If we had forgotten the name of our God,
Or ^(AC)stretched^[h] out our hands to a foreign god,
²¹^(AD)Would not God search this out?
For He knows the secrets of the heart.
²²^(AE)Yet for Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

²³^(AF)Awake! Why do You sleep, O Lord?
Arise! Do not cast us off forever.
²⁴^(AG)Why do You hide Your face,
And forget our affliction and our oppression?
²⁵For ^(AH)our soul is bowed down to the ^[i]dust;
Our body clings to the ground.
²⁶Arise for our help,
And redeem us for Your mercies’ sake.