Scripture readings:

Psalm 42 & 43

To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah. 

As a deer pants for flowing streams, 
so pants my soul for you, O God. 
My soul thirsts for God, 
for the living God. 
When shall I come and appear before God? 
My tears have been my food 
day and night, 
while they say to me all the day long, 
“Where is your God?” 
These things I remember, 
as I pour out my soul: 
how I would go with the throng 
and lead them in procession to the house of God 
with glad shouts and songs of praise, 
a multitude keeping festival. 

Why are you cast down, O my soul, 
and why are you in turmoil within me? 
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, 
my salvation and my God. 

My soul is cast down within me; 
therefore I remember you 
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, 
from Mount Mizar. 

Deep calls to deep 
at the roar of your waterfalls; 
all your breakers and your waves 
have gone over me. 
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, 
and at night his song is with me, 
a prayer to the God of my life. 
I say to God, my rock: 
“Why have you forgotten me? 
Why do I go mourning 
because of the oppression of the enemy?” 
As with a deadly wound in my bones, 
my adversaries taunt me, 
while they say to me all the day long, 
“Where is your God?” 

Why are you cast down, O my soul, 
and why are you in turmoil within me? 
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, 
my salvation and my God. 

 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).

Romans 8:31–39

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, 

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).