2:6 The Lord both kills and gives life;
he brings down to the grave 1 and raises up.
2:7 The Lord impoverishes and makes wealthy;
he humbles and he exalts.
2:8 He lifts the weak 2 from the dust;
he raises 3 the poor from the ash heap
to seat them with princes
and to bestow on them an honored position. 4
The foundations of the earth belong to the Lord,
and he has placed the world on them.
2:9 He watches over 5 his holy ones, 6
but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness,
for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.
1 tn Heb “Sheol”; NAB “the nether world”; CEV “the world of the dead.”
2 tn Or “lowly”; Heb “insignificant.”
3 tn The imperfect verbal form, which is parallel to the participle in the preceding line, is best understood here as indicating what typically happens.
4 tn Heb “a seat of honor.”
5 tn Heb “guards the feet of.” The expression means that God watches over and protects the godly in all of their activities and movements. The imperfect verbal forms in v. 9 are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.
6 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew