Chapter 52

Why Do You Boast of Evil?

1 Samuel 22:6–23

For the choirmaster. A Maskil^a of David. After Doeg the Edomite went to Saul and told him, “David has gone to the house of Ahimelech.”

¹Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?

The loving devotion of God endures all day long.

²Your tongue devises destruction

like a sharpened razor,

O worker of deceit.

³You love evil more than good,

falsehood more than speaking truth.

Selah

⁴You love every word that devours,

O deceitful tongue.

⁵Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin;

He will snatch you up and tear you away from your tent;

He will uproot you from the land of the living.

Selah

⁶The righteous will see and fear;

they will mock the evildoer, saying,

⁷“Look at the man

who did not make God his refuge,

but trusted in the abundance of his wealth

and strengthened himself by destruction.”

⁸But I am like an olive tree

flourishing in the house of God;

I trust in the loving devotion of God

forever and ever.

⁹I will praise You forever,

because You have done it.

I will wait on Your name—

for it is good—

in the presence of Your saints.