God is surely good to Israel
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A PSALM OF ASAPH. Surely God [is] good to Israel, to the clean of heart. And I—as a little thing, || My feet have been turned aside,
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As nothing, my steps have slipped, || For I have been envious of the boastful,
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I see the peace of the wicked, || That there are no bands at their death,
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And their might [is] firm.
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They are not in the misery of mortals, || And they are not plagued with common men.
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Therefore pride has encircled them, || Violence covers them as a dress.
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Their eye has come out from fat. The imaginations of the heart transgressed;
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They do corruptly, || And they speak in the wickedness of oppression, || They speak from on high.
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They have set their mouth in the heavens, || And their tongue walks in the earth.
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Therefore His people return here, || And waters of fullness are wrung out to them.
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And they have said, “How has God known? And is there knowledge in the Most High?”
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Behold, these [are] the wicked and easy ones of the age, || They have increased strength.
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Only—a vain thing! I have purified my heart, || And I wash my hands in innocence,
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And I am plagued all the day, || And my reproof—every morning.
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If I have said, “I recount thus,” || Behold, I have deceived a generation of Your sons.
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And I think to know this, || It [is] perverseness in my eyes,
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Until I come into the sanctuaries of God, || I attend to their latter end.
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Surely You set them in slippery places, || You have caused them to fall to desolations.
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How they have become a desolation as in a moment, || They have been ended—consumed from terrors.
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As a dream from awakening, O Lord, || In awaking, You despise their image.
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For my heart shows itself violent, || And my reins prick themselves,
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And I am brutish, and do not know. I have been a beast with You.
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And I [am] continually with You, || You have laid hold on my right hand.
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You lead me with Your counsel, || And after, receive me [to] glory.
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Whom do I have in the heavens? And none have I desired in earth [besides] You.
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My flesh and my heart have been consumed, || God [is] the rock of my heart and my portion for all time.
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For behold, those far from You perish, || You have cut off everyone, || Who is going whoring from You.
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And [the] nearness of God to me [is] good, || I have placed my refuge in Lord YHWH, || To recount all Your works!
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