and that we may be delivered from perverse and evil people. For not all have faith.

This is because you have disheartened the righteous person with lies (although I have not grieved him), and because you have encouraged the wicked person not to turn from his evil conduct and preserve his life.

Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but prefer that the wicked change his behavior ¹  and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil deeds! ²  Why should you die, O house of Israel?’

He watches over ¹  his holy ones, ²  but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness, for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.

(Wicked Athaliah and her sons had broken into God’s temple and used all the holy items of the Lord’s temple in their worship of the Baals.)

If a land ¹  has been given into the hand of a wicked man, ²  he covers ³  the faces of its judges; ⁴  if it is not he, then who is it? ⁵ 

Is it good for you ¹  to oppress, ²  to ³  despise the work of your hands, while ⁴  you smile ⁵  on the schemes of the wicked?

“How often ¹  is the lamp of the wicked extinguished? How often does their ²  misfortune come upon them? How often does God apportion pain ³  to them ⁴  in his anger?

The Lord revealed himself; he accomplished justice; the wicked were ensnared by their own actions. ¹  (Higgaion. ²  Selah)

The wicked man is so arrogant he always thinks, “God won’t hold me accountable; he doesn’t care.” ¹ 

For look, the wicked ¹  prepare ²  their bows, ³  they put their arrows on the strings, to shoot in the darkness ⁴  at the morally upright. ⁵ 

As smoke is driven away by the wind, so you drive them away. ¹  As wax melts before fire, so the wicked are destroyed before God.

When the wicked sprout up like grass, and all the evildoers glisten, ¹  it is so that they may be annihilated. ² 

You who love the Lord, hate evil! He protects ¹  the lives of his faithful followers; he delivers them from the power ²  of the wicked.

O Lord, shelter me from the power ¹  of the wicked! Protect me from violent men, who plan to knock me over. ² 

The Lord protects those residing outside their native land; he lifts up the fatherless and the widow, ¹  but he opposes the wicked. ² 

Although ¹  a righteous person may fall seven times, he gets up again, but the wicked will be brought down ²  by calamity.

¹ I will punish the world for its evil, ²  and wicked people for their sin. I will put an end to the pride of the insolent, I will bring down the arrogance of tyrants. ³ 

If the wicked are shown mercy, they do not learn about justice. ¹  Even in a land where right is rewarded, they act unjustly; ²  they do not see the Lord’s majesty revealed.

But just watch! ¹  The wrath of the Lord will come like a storm! ²  Like a raging storm it will rage down ³  on the heads of those who are wicked.