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Psalm 52

1  Why do you glory in evil, you tyrant, ♦︎
   while the goodness of God endures continually?
2  You plot destruction, you deceiver; ♦︎
   your tongue is like a sharpened razor.
3  You love evil rather than good, ♦︎
   falsehood rather than the word of truth.
4  You love all words that hurt, ♦︎
   O you deceitful tongue.
5  Therefore God shall utterly bring you down; ♦︎
   he shall take you and pluck you out of your tent
      and root you out of the land of the living.
6  The righteous shall see this and tremble; ♦︎
   they shall laugh you to scorn, and say:
7  ‘This is the one who did not take God for a refuge, ♦︎
   but trusted in great riches and relied upon wickedness.’
8  But I am like a spreading olive tree in the house of God; ♦︎
   I trust in the goodness of God for ever and ever.
9  I will always give thanks to you for what you have done; ♦︎
   I will hope in your name,
      for your faithful ones delight in it.

Exhortation to Repent

22Thus says the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, ²and say: Hear the word of the Lord, O King of Judah sitting on the throne of David—you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. ³Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴For if you will indeed obey this word, then through the gates of this house shall enter kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their servants, and their people. ⁵But if you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. ⁶For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah:
You are like Gilead to me,
   like the summit of Lebanon;
but I swear that I will make you a desert,
   an uninhabited city.^*
7 I will prepare destroyers against you,
   all with their weapons;
they shall cut down your choicest cedars
   and cast them into the fire.

8 And many nations will pass by this city, and all of them will say one to another, ‘Why has the Lord dealt in this way with that great city?’ ⁹And they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped other gods and served them.’

A Tree and Its Fruit

43 ‘No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; ⁴⁴for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. ⁴⁵The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.