Psalm 35-37

The Message

^4-8 When those thugs try to knife me in the back,
    make them look foolish.
Frustrate all those
    who are plotting my downfall.
Make them like cinders in a high wind,
    with God’s angel working the bellows.
Make their road lightless and mud-slick,
    with God’s angel on their tails.
Out of sheer cussedness they set a trap to catch me;
    for no good reason they dug a ditch to stop me.
Surprise them with your ambush—
    catch them in the very trap they set,
    the disaster they planned for me.

^9-10 But let me run loose and free,
    celebrating God’s great work,
Every bone in my body laughing, singing, “God,
    there’s no one like you.
You put the down-and-out on their feet
    and protect the unprotected from bullies!”

^11-12 Hostile accusers appear out of nowhere,
    they stand up and badger me.
They pay me back misery for mercy,
    leaving my soul empty.

^13-14 When they were sick, I dressed in black;
    instead of eating, I prayed.
My prayers were like lead in my gut,
    like I’d lost my best friend, my brother.
I paced, distraught as a motherless child,
    hunched and heavyhearted.

^15-16 But when I was down
    they threw a party!
All the nameless misfits of the town came
    chanting insults about me.
Like barbarians desecrating a shrine,
    they destroyed my reputation.

^17-18 God, how long are you going
    to stand there doing nothing?
Save me from their brutalities;
    everything I’ve got is being thrown to the lions.
I will give you full credit
    when everyone gathers for worship;
When the people turn out in force
    I will say my Hallelujahs.

^19-21 Don’t let these liars, my enemies,
    have a party at my expense,
Those who hate me for no reason,
    winking and rolling their eyes.
No good is going to come
    from that crowd;
They spend all their time cooking up gossip
    against those who mind their own business.
They open their mouths
    in ugly grins,
Mocking, “Ha-ha, ha-ha, thought you’d get away with it?
    We’ve caught you hands down!”

²² Don’t you see what they’re doing, God?
    You’re not going to let them
Get by with it, are you? Not going to walk off
    without doing something, are you?

^23-26 Please get up—wake up! Tend to my case.
    My God, my Lord—my life is on the line.
Do what you think is right, God, my God,
    but don’t make me pay for their good time.
Don’t let them say to themselves,
    “Ha-ha, we got what we wanted.”
Don’t let them say,
    “We’ve chewed him up and spit him out.”
Let those who are being hilarious
    at my expense
Be made to look ridiculous.
    Make them wear donkey’s ears;
Pin them with the donkey’s tail,
    who made themselves so high and mighty!

^27-28 But those who want
    the best for me,
Let them have the last word—a glad shout!—
    and say, over and over and over,
“God is great—everything works
    together for good for his servant.”
I’ll tell the world how great and good you are,
    I’ll shout Hallelujah all day, every day.
36 ^1-4 The God-rebel tunes in to sedition—
    all ears, eager to sin.
He has no regard for God,
    he stands insolent before him.
He has smooth-talked himself
    into believing
That his evil
    will never be noticed.
Words gutter from his mouth,
    dishwater dirty.
Can’t remember when he
    did anything decent.
Every time he goes to bed,
    he fathers another evil plot.
When he’s loose on the streets,
    nobody’s safe.
He plays with fire
    and doesn’t care who gets burned.

^5-6 God’s love is meteoric,
    his loyalty astronomic,
His purpose titanic,
    his verdicts oceanic.
Yet in his largeness
    nothing gets lost;
Not a man, not a mouse,
    slips through the cracks.

^7-9 How exquisite your love, O God!
    How eager we are to run under your wings,
To eat our fill at the banquet you spread
    as you fill our tankards with Eden spring water.
You’re a fountain of cascading light,
    and you open our eyes to light.

^10-12 Keep on loving your friends;
    do your work in welcoming hearts.
Don’t let the bullies kick me around,
    the moral midgets slap me down.
Send the upstarts sprawling
    flat on their faces in the mud.
37 ^1-2 Don’t bother your head with braggarts
    or wish you could succeed like the wicked.
In no time they’ll shrivel like grass clippings
    and wilt like cut flowers in the sun.

^3-4 Get insurance with God and do a good deed,
    settle down and stick to your last.
Keep company with God,
    get in on the best.

^5-6 Open up before God, keep nothing back;
    he’ll do whatever needs to be done:
He’ll validate your life in the clear light of day
    and stamp you with approval at high noon.

⁷ Quiet down before God,
    be prayerful before him.
Don’t bother with those who climb the ladder,
    who elbow their way to the top.

^8-9 Bridle your anger, trash your wrath,
    cool your pipes—it only makes things worse.
Before long the crooks will be bankrupt;
    God-investors will soon own the store.

^10-11 Before you know it, the wicked will have had it;
    you’ll stare at his once famous place and—nothing!
Down-to-earth people will move in and take over,
    relishing a huge bonanza.

^12-13 Bad guys have it in for the good guys,
    obsessed with doing them in.
But God isn’t losing any sleep; to him
    they’re a joke with no punch line.

^14-15 Bullies brandish their swords,
    pull back on their bows with a flourish.
They’re out to beat up on the harmless,
    or mug that nice man out walking his dog.
A banana peel lands them flat on their faces—
    slapstick figures in a moral circus.

^16-17 Less is more and more is less.
    One righteous will outclass fifty wicked,
For the wicked are moral weaklings
    but the righteous are God-strong.

^18-19 God keeps track of the decent folk;
    what they do won’t soon be forgotten.
In hard times, they’ll hold their heads high;
    when the shelves are bare, they’ll be full.

²⁰ God-despisers have had it;
    God’s enemies are finished—
Stripped bare like vineyards at harvest time,
    vanished like smoke in thin air.

^21-22 Wicked borrows and never returns;
    Righteous gives and gives.
Generous gets it all in the end;
    Stingy is cut off at the pass.

^23-24 Stalwart walks in step with God;
    his path blazed by God, he’s happy.
If he stumbles, he’s not down for long;
    God has a grip on his hand.

^25-26 I once was young, now I’m a graybeard—
    not once have I seen an abandoned believer,
    or his kids out roaming the streets.
Every day he’s out giving and lending,
    his children making him proud.

^27-28 Turn your back on evil,
    work for the good and don’t quit.
God loves this kind of thing,
    never turns away from his friends.

^28-29 Live this way and you’ve got it made,
    but bad eggs will be tossed out.
The good get planted on good land
    and put down healthy roots.

^30-31 Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone,
    rolls virtue around on his tongue.
His heart pumps God’s Word like blood through his veins;
    his feet are as sure as a cat’s.

^32-33 Wicked sets a watch for Righteous,
    he’s out for the kill.
God, alert, is also on watch—
    Wicked won’t hurt a hair of his head.

³⁴ Wait passionately for God,
    don’t leave the path.
He’ll give you your place in the sun
    while you watch the wicked lose it.

^35-36 I saw Wicked bloated like a toad,
    croaking pretentious nonsense.
The next time I looked there was nothing—
    a punctured bladder, vapid and limp.

^37-38 Keep your eye on the healthy soul,
    scrutinize the straight life;
There’s a future
    in strenuous wholeness.
But the willful will soon be discarded;
    insolent souls are on a dead-end street.

^39-40 The spacious, free life is from God,
    it’s also protected and safe.
God-strengthened, we’re delivered from evil—
    when we run to him, he saves us.