Psalms

¹ Don't bother your head with braggarts or wish you could succeed like the wicked.

² and wilt like cut flowers in the sun.

³ settle down and stick to your last.

⁴ get in on the best.

⁵ he'll do whatever needs to be done:

⁶ and stamp you with approval at high noon.

⁷ be prayerful before him. Don't bother with those who climb the ladder, who elbow their way to the top.

⁸ cool your pipes—it only makes things worse.

⁹ God-investors will soon own the store.

¹⁰ you'll stare at his once famous place and—nothing!

¹¹ relishing a huge bonanza.

¹² obsessed with doing them in.

¹³ they're a joke with no punch line.

¹⁴ pull back on their bows with a flourish. They're out to beat up on the harmless, or mug that nice man out walking his dog.

¹⁵ slapstick figures in a moral circus.

¹⁶ One righteous will outclass fifty wicked,

¹⁷ but the righteous are God-strong.

¹⁸ what they do won't soon be forgotten.

¹⁹ when the shelves are bare, they'll be full.

²⁰ God's enemies are finished— Stripped bare like vineyards at harvest time, vanished like smoke in thin air.

²¹ Righteous gives and gives.

²² Stingy is cut off at the pass.

²³ his path blazed by God, he's happy.

²⁴ God has a grip on his hand.

²⁵ not once have I seen an abandoned believer, or his kids out roaming the streets.

²⁶ his children making him proud.

²⁷ work for the good and don't quit.

²⁸ never turns away from his friends. Live this way and you've got it made, but bad eggs will be tossed out.

²⁹ and put down healthy roots.

³⁰ rolls virtue around on his tongue.

³¹ his feet are as sure as a cat's.

³² he's out for the kill.

³³ Wicked won't hurt a hair of his head.

³⁴ don't leave the path. He'll give you your place in the sun while you watch the wicked lose it.

³⁵ croaking pretentious nonsense.

³⁶ a punctured bladder, vapid and limp.

³⁷ scrutinize the straight life; There's a future in strenuous wholeness.

³⁸ insolent souls are on a dead-end street.

³⁹ it's also protected and safe.

⁴⁰ when we run to him, he saves us.