SOTD Psalm 73

Psalm 73

BOOK THREE

God Is My Strength and Portion Forever

A Psalm of Asaph.

¹Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
²But 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.

⁴For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
⁵They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
⁶Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
⁷Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
⁸They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
⁹They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
¹⁰Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
¹¹And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
¹²Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
¹³All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
¹⁵If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

¹⁶But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
¹⁷until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.

¹⁸Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
¹⁹How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
²⁰Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
²¹When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
²²I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.

²³Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
²⁴You 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.

²⁷For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
²⁸But 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.