Why Do You Boast of Evil?

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.