Psalm 73

God Is My Strength and Portion Forever

A Psalm of Asaph.

¹Truly God is good to Israel,

to those who are pure in heart.

²But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,

my steps had nearly slipped.

³For I was envious of the arrogant

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴For they have no pangs until death;

their bodies are fat and sleek.

⁵They are not in trouble as others are;

they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.

⁶Therefore pride is their necklace;

violence covers them as a garment.

⁷Their eyes swell out through fatness;

their hearts overflow with follies.

⁸They scoff and speak with malice;

loftily they threaten oppression.

⁹They set their mouths against the heavens,

and their tongue struts through the earth.

¹⁰Therefore his people turn back to them,

and find no fault in them.

¹¹And they say, “How can God know?

Is there knowledge in the Most High?”

¹²Behold, these are the wicked;

always at ease, they increase in riches.

¹³All in vain have I kept my heart clean

and washed my hands in innocence.

¹⁴For all the day long I have been stricken

and rebuked every morning.

¹⁵If I had said, “I will speak thus,”

I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

¹⁶But when I thought how to understand this,

it seemed to me a wearisome task,

¹⁷until I went into the sanctuary of God;

then I discerned their end.

¹⁸Truly you set them in slippery places;

you make them fall to ruin.

¹⁹How they are destroyed in a moment,

swept away utterly by terrors!

²⁰Like a dream when one awakes,

O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

²¹When my soul was embittered,

when I was pricked in heart,

²²I was brutish and ignorant;

I was like a beast toward you.

²³Nevertheless, I am continually with you;

you hold my right hand.

²⁴You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will receive me to glory.

²⁵Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

²⁶My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

²⁷For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;

you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

²⁸But for me it is good to be near God;

I have made the Lord God my refuge,

that I may tell of all your works.