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The two paths[a]

If someone does not do what wicked people tell him to do,
    if he does not join with sinners,
    if he does not meet with those who laugh at God,
God has blessed that person!
He is happy when he obeys the Law of the Lord.[b]
He thinks about God's Law during the day and at night.
He will become like a tree that grows beside streams of water.
    It gives its fruit at the right season.
    Its leaves do not fall off.
Everything that person does will have a good result.
But wicked people are as empty as chaff.
    The wind blows them away.[c]
So they will not go free when God judges them.
Sinners cannot join with God's people,
    the people who are right with God.[d]
The Lord takes care of people who respect him.
But wicked people are living in a way that will take them to a bad end.

Footnotes

  1. 1:1 This psalm tells us about two groups of people: (1) people who want to please God; (2) people who do not respect God at all. These two groups of people walk along different paths. Each path leads to a different result. Verse 6 tells us what happens to people in each of these groups.
  2. 1:2 When we write Lord like this, it is a special name for God. Sometimes people write it as ‘Yahweh’, or as ‘Jehovah’. It is his own name that he told Moses. See Exodus 3:14. It means ‘I am who I am’. This shows that God has always been there and he always will be there.
  3. 1:4 Wicked people do not obey God's rules. God will blow them away like chaff one day.
  4. 1:5 God judges all people. He will decide if they are guilty.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.