Psalm 73-74

New Revised Standard Version

⁴ For they have no pain;
    their bodies are sound and sleek.
⁵ They are not in trouble as others are;
    they are not plagued like other people.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace;
    violence covers them like 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 heaven,
    and their tongues range over 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 Such are the wicked;
    always at ease, they increase in riches.
¹³ All in vain I have kept my heart clean
    and washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴ For all day long I have been plagued,
    and am punished every morning.

¹⁵ If I had said, “I will talk on in this way,”
    I would have been untrue to the circle of your 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 you set them in slippery places;
    you 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 brute beast toward you.
²³ Nevertheless I am continually with you;
    you hold my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
    and afterward you will receive me with honor.^[e]
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength^[f] of my heart and my portion forever.

²⁷ Indeed, those who are far from you will perish;
    you put an end to those who are false to you.
²⁸ But for me it is good to be near God;
    I have made the Lord God my refuge,
    to tell of all your works.

⁴ Your foes have roared within your holy place;
    they set up their emblems there.
⁵ At the upper entrance they hacked
    the wooden trellis with axes.^[g]
6 And then, with hatchets and hammers,
    they smashed all its carved work.
⁷ They set your sanctuary on fire;
    they desecrated the dwelling place of your name,
    bringing it to the ground.
⁸ They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;
    they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

⁹ We do not see our emblems;
    there is no longer any prophet,
    and there is no one among us who knows how long.
¹⁰ How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
    Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
¹¹ Why do you hold back your hand;
    why do you keep your hand in^[h] your bosom?

¹² Yet God my King is from of old,
    working salvation in the earth.
¹³ You divided the sea by your might;
    you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.
¹⁴ You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
    you gave him as food^[i] for the creatures of the wilderness.
¹⁵ You cut openings for springs and torrents;
    you dried up ever-flowing streams.
¹⁶ Yours is the day, yours also the night;
    you established the luminaries^[j] and the sun.
¹⁷ You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;
    you made summer and winter.

¹⁸ Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,
    and an impious people reviles your name.
¹⁹ Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild animals;
    do not forget the life of your poor forever.

²⁰ Have regard for your^[k] covenant,
    for the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence.
²¹ Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame;
    let the poor and needy praise your name.
²² Rise up, O God, plead your cause;
    remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.
²³ Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
    the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.