God Is My Strength and Portion Forever

A Psalm of Asaph.

73:1 Truly 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.^[1]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[2] 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.

[1] Probable reading; Hebrew the waters of a full cup are drained by them [2] Hebrew rock

Psalm 74

Arise, O God, Defend Your Cause

A Maskil[3] of Asaph.

74:1 O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? ²Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage! Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt. ³Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!

⁴Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place; they set up their own signs for signs. ⁵They were like those who swing axes in a forest of trees.^[4]⁶And all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers. ⁷They set your sanctuary on fire; they profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground. ⁸They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”; they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

⁹We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long. ¹⁰How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever? ¹¹Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand? Take it from the fold of your garment[5] and destroy them!

¹²Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. ¹³You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters[6] on the waters. ¹⁴You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. ¹⁵You split open springs and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams. ¹⁶Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. ¹⁷You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.

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

²⁰Have regard for the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence. ²¹Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame; let the poor and needy praise your name.

²²Arise, O God, defend your cause; remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day! ²³Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!

[3] Probably a musical or liturgical term [4] The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain [5] Hebrew from your bosom [6] Or the great sea creatures