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.