Psalms 73

DOUAI-RHEIMS	CATHOLIC PUBLIC DOMAIN
1 A psalm for Asaph. How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!	1 The understanding of Asaph. O God, why have you rejected us to the end. Why has your fury become enraged over the sheep of your pasture?
2 But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped.	2 Be mindful of your congregation, which you have possessed from the beginning. You redeemed the scepter of your inheritance, mount Zion, in which you have dwelt.
3 Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners.	3 Lift up your hands against their arrogance in the end. How great the malice of the enemy has been in the sanctuary!
4 For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their stripes.	4 And those who hate you have been glorified, in the midst of your solemnity. They have set up their own signs as a proof,
5 They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men. B Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.	5 as if it had been issued from on high; yet they did not understand. As in a forest of chopped wood,
6 dummy verses inserted by amos	6 they have cut down the entrances themselves. With axe and hatchet, they have brought it down.
7 Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.	7 They have set fire to your Sanctuary. They have polluted the tabernacle of your name on earth.
8 They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.	8 They have said in their heart, the whole group of them together: “Let us cause all the feast days of God to cease from the land.
9 They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth.	9 We have not seen our proof; there is now no prophet. And he will no longer know us.”
10 Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them.	10 How long, O God, will the enemy place blame? Is the adversary to provoke your name until the end?
11 And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?	11 Why do you turn your hand away, even your right hand, from the midst of your sinews, until the end?
12 Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches.	12 But God is our king before all ages. He has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.	13 In your virtue, you confirmed the sea. You crushed the heads of the serpents in the waters.
14 And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings.	14 You have broken the heads of the serpent. You have given him as food for the people of the Ethiopians.
15 If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children.	15 You have disrupted the fountains and the torrents. You have dried up the rivers of Ethan.
16 I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight:	16 Yours is the day, and yours is the night. You have made the morning light and the sun.
17 Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.	17 You have made all the limits of the earth. The summer and the spring were formed by you.
18 But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down.	18 Be mindful of this: the enemy placed blame against the Lord, and a foolish people has incited against your name.
19 How are they brought to desolation? they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity.	19 Do not hand over to beasts the souls that confess to you; and do not forget the souls of your poor until the end.
20 As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.	20 Consider your covenant. For those who have been darkened upon the earth have been filled by the iniquity of the houses.
21 For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed:	21 Do not allow the humble to be turned away in confusion. The poor and the needy will praise your name.
22 and I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.	22 Rise up, O God, judge your own case. Call to mind the accusations against you, which are made by the foolish all day long.
23 I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee.	23 Do not forget the voices of your adversaries. The arrogance of those who hate you rises up continually.
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.