August 4

73:1 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. [1]
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 [2] 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.

74:1 O God, why do you cast us off forever?
 Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
2 Remember 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.
3 Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;
 the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!

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

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

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

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

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

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