Chapter 72

  A psalm for Asaph. How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!  

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  But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped.  

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  Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners.  

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  For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their stripes.  

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  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.  

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  Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.  

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  They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.  

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  They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth.  

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  Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them.  

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  And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?  

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  Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches.  

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  And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.  

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  And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings.  

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  If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children.  

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  I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight:  

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  Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.  

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  But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down.  

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  How are they brought to desolation? they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity.  

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  As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.  

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  For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed:  

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  and I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.  

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  I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee.  

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  Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me.  

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  For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth?  

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  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.  

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  For behold they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee.  

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  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.  

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