Psalms 52

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.”
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.
Psalm 51Psalm 53

Footnotes

v. 1Maskil is probably a musical or liturgical term; used for Psalms 32, 42, 44–45, 52–55, 74, 78, 88–89, and 142.
Psalm 51Psalm 53