14. For I am afflicted day after day,chastised every morning.
15. Had I thought, “I will speak as they do,”I would have betrayed this generation of your children.
16. Though I tried to understand all this,it was too difficult for me,
17. Till I entered the sanctuary of Godand came to understand their end.
18. You set them, indeed, on a slippery road;you hurl them down to ruin.
19. How suddenly they are devastated;utterly undone by disaster!
20. They are like a dream after waking, Lord,dismissed like shadows when you arise.
21. Since my heart was embitteredand my soul deeply wounded,
22. I was stupid and could not understand;I was like a brute beast in your presence.
23. Yet I am always with you;you take hold of my right hand.
24. With your counsel you guide me,and at the end receive me with honor.
25. Whom else have I in the heavens?None beside you delights me on earth.
26. Though my flesh and my heart fail,God is the rock of my heart, my portion forever.
27. But those who are far from you perish;you destroy those unfaithful to you.
28. As for me, to be near God is my good,to make the Lord God my refuge.I shall declare all your worksin the gates of daughter Zion.