1: Don't bother your head with braggarts or wish you could succeed like the wicked.
2: In no time they'll shrivel like grass clippings and wilt like cut flowers in the sun.
3: Get insurance with GOD and do a good deed, settle down and stick to your last.
4: Keep company with GOD, get in on the best.
5: Open up before GOD, keep nothing back; he'll do whatever needs to be done:
6: He'll validate your life in the clear light of day and stamp you with approval at high noon.
7: Quiet down before GOD, be prayerful before him. Don't bother with those who climb the ladder, who elbow their way to the top.
8: Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes--it only makes things worse.
9: Before long the crooks will be bankrupt; GOD-investors will soon own the store.
10: Before you know it, the wicked will have had it; you'll stare at his once famous place and--nothing!
11: Down-to-earth people will move in and take over, relishing a huge bonanza.
12: Bad guys have it in for the good guys, obsessed with doing them in.
13: But GOD isn't losing any sleep; to him they're a joke with no punch line.
14: Bullies 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.
15: A banana peel lands them flat on their faces--slapstick figures in a moral circus.
16: Less is more and more is less. One righteous will outclass fifty wicked,
17: For the wicked are moral weaklings but the righteous are GOD-strong.
18: GOD keeps track of the decent folk; what they do won't soon be forgotten.
19: In hard times, they'll hold their heads high; when the shelves are bare, they'll be full.
20: God--despisers have had it; GOD's enemies are finished--Stripped bare like vineyards at harvest time, vanished like smoke in thin air.
21: Wicked borrows and never returns; Righteous gives and gives.
22: Generous gets it all in the end; Stingy is cut off at the pass.
23: Stalwart walks in step with GOD; his path blazed by GOD, he's happy.
24: If he stumbles, he's not down for long; GOD has a grip on his hand.
25: I once was young, now I'm a graybeard--not once have I seen an abandoned believer, or his kids out roaming the streets.
26: Every day he's out giving and lending, his children making him proud.
27: Turn your back on evil, work for the good and don't quit.
28: GOD loves this kind of thing, never turns away from his friends. Live this way and you've got it made, but bad eggs will be tossed out.
29: The good get planted on good land and put down healthy roots.
30: Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone, rolls virtue around on his tongue.
31: His heart pumps God's Word like blood through his veins; his feet are as sure as a cat's.
32: Wicked sets a watch for Righteous, he's out for the kill.
33: GOD, alert, is also on watch--Wicked won't hurt a hair of his head.
34: Wait passionately for GOD, don't leave the path. He'll give you your place in the sun while you watch the wicked lose it.
35: I saw Wicked bloated like a toad, croaking pretentious nonsense.
36: The next time I looked there was nothing--a punctured bladder, vapid and limp.
37: Keep your eye on the healthy soul, scrutinize the straight life; There's a future in strenuous wholeness.
38: But the willful will soon be discarded; insolent souls are on a dead-end street.
39: The spacious, free life is from GOD, it's also protected and safe.
40: GOD-strengthened, we're delivered from evil--when we run to him, he saves us.