God Is My Strength and Portion Forever
A Psalm of aAsaph.
Truly God is good to bIsrael,
to those who are cpure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
3 aFor I was benvious of the arrogant
when I saw the cprosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not astricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is atheir necklace;
violence covers them as ba garment.
7 Their aeyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and aspeak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find ano fault in them.
11 And they say, a“How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they aincrease in riches.
13 All in vain have I akept my heart clean
and bwashed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been astricken
and brebuked cevery morning.
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed athe generation of your children.
16 But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me aa wearisome task,
17 until I went into athe sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their bend.
18 Truly you set them in aslippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed ain a moment,
swept away utterly by bterrors!
20 Like aa dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when byou rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was abrutish and ignorant;
I was like ba beast toward you.
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you ahold my right hand.
24 You aguide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will breceive me to glory.
25 aWhom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 aMy flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is bthe strength of my heart and my cportion dforever.
27 For behold, those who are afar from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is bunfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to abe near God;
I have made the Lord God my brefuge,
that I may ctell of all your works.