As the deer pants [longingly] for the water brooks,
So my soul pants [longingly] for You, O God.

Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become restless and disturbed within me?
Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence.

Why are you in despair, O my soul?
Why have you become restless and disquieted within me?
Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.

Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime,
And in the night His song will be with me,
A prayer to the God of my life.

My soul (my life, my inner self) thirsts for God, for the living God.
When will I come and see the face of God?

O my God, my soul is in despair within me [the burden more than I can bear];
Therefore I will [fervently] remember You from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of [Mount] Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep at the [thundering] sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.

These things I [vividly] remember as I pour out my soul;
How I used to go along before the great crowd of people and lead them in procession to the house of God [like a choirmaster before his singers, timing the steps to the music and the chant of the song],
With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a great crowd keeping a festival.

My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”

As a crushing of my bones [with a sword], my adversaries taunt me,
While they say continually to me, “Where is your God?”