Psalms 37:20

But ¹  evil men will die; the Lord’s enemies will be incinerated ²  – they will go up in smoke. ³ 

But the wicked will perish: The LORD’s enemies will be like the beauty of the fields, they will vanish—vanish like smoke.

But the wicked will perish; And the enemies of the LORD will be like the glory of the pastures, They vanish—like smoke they vanish away.

But the wicked will perish. The LORD’s enemies are like flowers in a field––they will disappear like smoke.

God-despisers have had it; GOD's enemies are finished--Stripped bare like vineyards at harvest time, vanished like smoke in thin air.

But the wrongdoers will come to destruction, and the haters of the Lord will be like the fat of lambs, they will be burned up; they will go up in smoke, and never again be seen.

But the wicked perish, and the enemies of the LORD are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.

But the wicked shall perish; And the enemies of the LORD, Like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away.

But ¹  evil men will die; the Lord’s enemies will be incinerated ²  – they will go up in smoke. ³ 

¹ tn Or “for,” but Hebrew כי in this case would have to extend all the way back to v. 17a. Another option is to understand the particle as asseverative, “surely” (see v. 22).

² tc The meaning of the MT (כִּיקַר כָּרִים [kiqar karim], “like what is precious among the pastures/rams”) is uncertain. One possibility is to take the noun כָּרִים as “pastures” and interpret “what is precious” as referring to flowers that blossom but then quickly disappear (see v. 2 and BDB 430 s.v. יָקָר 3). If כָּרִים is taken as “rams,” then “what is precious” might refer to the choicest portions of rams. The present translation follows a reading in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QpPs37), כיקוד כורם (“like the burning of an oven”). The next line, which pictures the Lord’s enemies being consumed in smoke, supports this reading, which assumes confusion of the Hebrew letters resh (ר) and dalet (ד) at the end of the first word in the sequence.

³ tn Heb “they perish in smoke, they perish.” In addition to repeating the verb for emphasis, the psalmist uses the perfect form of the verb to picture the enemies’ demise as if it had already taken place. In this way he draws attention to the certitude of their judgment.