| 1 | A psalm for Asaph. How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart! |
| 2 | But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped. |
| 3 | Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners. |
| 4 | For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their stripes. |
| 5 | They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men. |
| 6 | Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness. |
| 7 | Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart. |
| 8 | They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high. |
| 9 | They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth. |
| 10 | Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them. |
| 11 | And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High? |
| 12 | Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches. |
| 13 | And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent. |
| 14 | And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings. |
| 15 | If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children. |
| 16 | I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight: |
| 17 | Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends. |
| 18 | But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down. |
| 19 | How are they brought to desolation? they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity. |
| 20 | As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing. |
| 21 | For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed: |
| 22 | And I am brought to nothing, and I knew not. |
| 23 | I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee. |
| 24 | Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me. |
| 25 | For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth? |
| 26 | For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away: thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever. |
| 27 | For behold they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee. |
| 28 | But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: That I may declare all thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion. |
