52
Why Do You Boast of Evil?
(1 Samuel 22:6–23)
For the choirmaster. A Maskil * of David. After Doeg the Edomite went to Saul and told him, “David has gone to the house of Ahimelech.”
1 Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?
The loving devotion of God endures all day long.
2 Your tongue devises destruction
like a sharpened razor,
O worker of deceit.
3 You love evil more than good,
falsehood more than speaking truth.
Selah
4 You love every word that devours,
O deceitful tongue.
5 Surely 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
6 The 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.”
8 But I am like an olive tree
flourishing in the house of God;
I trust in the loving devotion of God
forever and ever.
9 I 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.
* 52: Maskil is probably a musical or liturgical term; used for Psalms 32, 42, 44–45, 52–55, 74, 78, 88–89, and 142.