God Is My Strength and Portion Forever
A Psalm of Asaph.
73 Truly God is
good to Israel,
to those who are pure in
heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost
stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the
arrogant
when I saw the prosperity 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 stricken like the rest of
mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their
necklace;
violence covers them as a
garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through
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 his people turn back to
them,
and find no fault in them.[a]
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 rebuked every
morning.
15 If I had said, “I will speak
thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation 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 discerned 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 Like a dream when one
awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise
them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and
ignorant;
I was like a 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 to
glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides
you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength[b] of
my heart and my portion forever.
27 For behold,
those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful
to you.
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 your
works.