When You're Jealous

Psalm 73:1-28 ESV

Truly God is good to Israel,
    to those who are pure in heart.
2 

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
    my steps had nearly slipped.
3 

For I was envious of the arrogant
    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4 

For they have no pangs until death;
    their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 

They are not in trouble as others are;
    they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 

Therefore pride is their necklace;
    violence covers them as a garment.
7 

Their eyes swell out through fatness;
    their hearts overflow with follies.
8 

They scoff and speak with malice;
    loftily they threaten oppression.
9 

They set their mouths against the heavens,
    and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 

Therefore his people turn back to them,
    and find no fault in them.[a]
11 

And they say, “How can God know?
    Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 

Behold, these are the wicked;
    always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 

All in vain have I kept my heart clean
    and washed my hands in innocence.
14 

For all the day long I have been stricken
    and rebuked every morning.
15 

If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
    I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

16 

But when I thought how to understand this,
    it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 

until I went into the sanctuary of God;
    then I discerned their end.

18 

Truly you set them in slippery places;
    you make them fall to ruin.
19 

How they are destroyed in a moment,
    swept away utterly by terrors!
20 

Like a dream when one awakes,
    O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 

When my soul was embittered,
    when I was pricked in heart,
22 

I was brutish and ignorant;
    I was like a beast toward you.

23 

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
    you hold my right hand.
24 

You guide me with your counsel,
    and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 

Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 

My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength[b] of my heart and my portion forever.

27 

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
    you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 

But for me it is good to be near God;
    I have made the Lord God my refuge,
    that I may tell of all your works.