In her new, com­plete trans­la­tion of the Book of Psalms, Pamela Green­berg ​“favors beau­ty before the­ol­o­gy,” in the words of Mary Karr, writ­ing in the Wash­ing­ton Post of the unpub­lished man­u­script of this book, ​“breath­ing new life into the ancient texts.” It is pre­cise­ly the hon­esty of these prayer songs, over­flow­ing into wild jubi­lance or deeply wrench­ing despair, that Green­berg has cap­tured in her new trans­la­tions, mak­ing them touch us so deeply. Tra­di­tion­al trans­la­tions — from those of the medieval Jew­ish com­men­ta­tor Rashi to ear­ly Chris­t­ian com­men­ta­tors to the King James ver­sion — have down­played anger at God and rein­ter­pret­ed the Psalms in ways that would be doc­tri­nal­ly more palat­able, but which flat­ten the rich­ness and sub­tle­ty of the Hebrew verse. Green­berg’s trans­la­tion aims to restore the poet­ry and vibran­cy of the Psalms as a prayer­ful act, repli­cat­ing their emo­tion­al pas­sion while both wrestling with the text as liv­ing litur­gy and remain­ing as true as pos­si­ble to the orig­i­nals. Her desire in this new trans­la­tion is to rekin­dle the rel­e­vance of the Psalms, to bring to life what makes their words cry and breathe and shout — a labor of yearn­ing, neces­si­ty, and love.