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Psalms 37 - The Message bible

Psalms 37

¹Don’t bother your head with braggarts or wish you could succeed like the wicked. In no time they’ll shrivel like grass clippings and wilt like cut flowers in the sun.

³Get insurance with GOD and do a good deed, settle down and stick to your last. Keep company with GOD, get in on the best.

⁵Open up before GOD, keep nothing back; he’ll do whatever needs to be done: He’ll validate your life in the clear light of day and stamp you with approval at high noon.

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

⁸Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes—it only makes things worse. Before long the crooks will be bankrupt; GOD-investors will soon own the store.

¹⁰Before you know it, the wicked will have had it; you’ll stare at his once famous place and—nothing! Down-to-earth people will move in and take over, relishing a huge bonanza.

¹²Bad guys have it in for the good guys, obsessed with doing them in. But GOD isn’t losing any sleep; to him they’re a joke with no punch line.

¹⁴Bullies brandish their swords, 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. A banana peel lands them flat on their faces— slapstick figures in a moral circus.

¹⁶Less is more and more is less. One righteous will outclass fifty wicked, For the wicked are moral weaklings but the righteous are GOD-strong.

¹⁸GOD keeps track of the decent folk; what they do won’t soon be forgotten. In hard times, they’ll hold their heads high; when the shelves are bare, they’ll be full.

²⁰God-despisers have had it; GOD’s enemies are finished— Stripped bare like vineyards at harvest time, vanished like smoke in thin air.

²¹Wicked borrows and never returns; Righteous gives and gives. Generous gets it all in the end; Stingy is cut off at the pass.

²³Stalwart walks in step with GOD; his path blazed by GOD, he’s happy. If he stumbles, he’s not down for long; GOD has a grip on his hand.

²⁵I once was young, now I’m a graybeard— not once have I seen an abandoned believer, or his kids out roaming the streets. Every day he’s out giving and lending, his children making him proud.

²⁷Turn your back on evil, work for the good and don’t quit. GOD loves this kind of thing, never turns away from his friends.

²⁸Live this way and you’ve got it made, but bad eggs will be tossed out. The good get planted on good land and put down healthy roots.

³⁰Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone, rolls virtue around on his tongue. His heart pumps God’s Word like blood through his veins; his feet are as sure as a cat’s.

³²Wicked sets a watch for Righteous, he’s out for the kill. GOD, alert, is also on watch— Wicked won’t hurt a hair of his head.

³⁴Wait passionately for GOD, don’t leave the path. He’ll give you your place in the sun while you watch the wicked lose it.

³⁵I saw Wicked bloated like a toad, croaking pretentious nonsense. The next time I looked there was nothing— a punctured bladder, vapid and limp.

³⁷Keep your eye on the healthy soul, scrutinize the straight life; There’s a future in strenuous wholeness. But the willful will soon be discarded; insolent souls are on a dead-end street.

³⁹The spacious, free life is from GOD, it’s also protected and safe. GOD-strengthened, we’re delivered from evil— when we run to him, he saves us.