Psalm 73

Revised Standard Version

⁴ For they have no pangs;
    their bodies are sound and sleek.
⁵ They are not in trouble as other men are;
    they are not stricken like other men.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace;
    violence covers them as a garment.
⁷ Their eyes swell out with 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 the people turn and praise them;^[b]
    and find no fault in them.^[c]
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 chastened every morning.

¹⁵ If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
    I would have been untrue to the generation of thy 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 perceived their end.
¹⁸ Truly thou dost set them in slippery places;
    thou dost make them fall to ruin.
¹⁹ How they are destroyed in a moment,
    swept away utterly by terrors!
²⁰ They are^[d] like a dream when one awakes,
    on awaking you despise their phantoms.

²¹ When my soul was embittered,
    when I was pricked in heart,
²² I was stupid and ignorant,
    I was like a beast toward thee.
²³ Nevertheless I am continually with thee;
    thou dost hold my right hand.
²⁴ Thou dost guide me with thy counsel,
    and afterward thou wilt receive me to glory.^[e]
25 Whom have I in heaven but thee?
    And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength^[f] of my heart and my portion for ever.

²⁷ For lo, those who are far from thee shall perish;
    thou dost put an end to those who are false to thee.
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 thy works.