Book Three
God Is My Strength and Portion Forever
A Psalm of Asaph.
1 Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are zpure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly aslipped.
3 bFor I was cenvious 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 das a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through efatness;
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, f“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 gin 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 hLike a dream when one iawakes,
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 jlike a beast toward you.
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your kcounsel,
and afterward you will lreceive 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 strength2 of my heart and mmy 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 ntell of all your works.
1 For I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you. 2 For hif I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained? 3 And iI wrote as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for jI felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all. 4 For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.
Forgive the Sinner
5 Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you. 6 For such a one, this kpunishment by the majority is enough, 7 so lyou should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 So mI beg you to reaffirm your love for him. 9 For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are nobedient in everything. 10 Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
Triumph in Christ
12 When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a odoor was opened for me in the Lord, 13 my spirit was pnot at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia.
14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always qleads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the rfragrance of the sknowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are the taroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 17 For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of usincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.
