1:
A psalm for Asaph. How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!
2:
But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped.
3:
Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners.
4:
For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their stripes.
5:
They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men.
6:
Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.
7:
Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.
8:
They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.
9:
They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth.
10:
Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them.
11:
And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?
12:
Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches.
13:
And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.
14:
And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings.
15:
If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children.
16:
I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight:
17:
Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.
18:
But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down.
19:
How are they brought to desolation? they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity.
20:
As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.
21:
For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed:
22:
and I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.
23:
I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee.
24:
Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me.
25:
For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth?
26:
For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away: thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever.
27:
For behold they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee.
28:
But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: That I may declare all thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion.