Psalms 73 / 150
- 1(Book Three)
(God Is My Strength and Portion Forever)A Psalm of Asaph.
Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
- 2
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
- 3
For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
- 4
For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
- 5
They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
- 6
Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
- 7
Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
- 8
They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
- 9
They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
- 10
Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
- 11
And they say, "How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?"
- 12
Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
- 13
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
- 14
For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
- 15
If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
- 16
But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
- 17
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
- 18
Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
- 19
How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
- 20
Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
- 21
When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
- 22
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
- 23
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
- 24
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
- 25
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
- 26
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
- 27
For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
- 28
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.