Psalms 37:27

THE MESSAGE

Turn your back on evil, work for the good and don't quit. God loves this kind of thing, never turns away from his friends. Live this way and you've got it made, but bad eggs will be tossed out. The good get planted on good land and put down healthy roots. Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone, rolls virtue around on his tongue. His heart pumps God's Word like blood through his veins; his feet are as sure as a cat's. Wicked sets a watch for Righteous, he's out for the kill. God , alert, is also on watch— Wicked won't hurt a hair of his head. Wait passionately for God , don't leave the path. He'll give you your place in the sun while you watch the wicked lose it. I saw Wicked bloated like a toad, croaking pretentious nonsense. The next time I looked there was nothing— a punctured bladder, vapid and limp. Keep your eye on the healthy soul, scrutinize the straight life; There's a future in strenuous wholeness. But the willful will soon be discarded; insolent souls are on a dead-end street. The spacious, free life is from God , it's also protected and safe. God -strengthened, we're delivered from evil— when we run to him, he saves us.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Turn away from evil, do what is good,and settle permanently.

Hebrew Names Version
Depart from evil, and do good; Live securely forever.

King James Version
Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.

English Standard Version
Turn away from evil and do good; so shall you dwell forever.

New Century Version
Stop doing evil and do good, so you will live forever.

New English Translation
Turn away from evil! Do what is right! Then you will enjoy lasting security.

Amplified Bible
Depart from evil and do good; And you will dwell [securely in the land] forever.

New American Standard Bible
Turn from evil and do good, So that you will dwell forever.

World English Bible
Depart from evil, and do good; Live securely forever.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Flee from euill and doe good, and dwell for euer.

Legacy Standard Bible
Depart from evil and do good,So you will dwell forever.

Berean Standard Bible
Turn away from evil and do good, so that you will abide forever.

Contemporary English Version
If you stop sinning and start doing right, you will keep living and be secure forever.

Complete Jewish Bible
If you turn from evil and do good, you will live safely forever.

Darby Translation
Depart from evil, and do good, and dwell for evermore;

Easy-to-Read Version
Stop doing anything evil and do good, and you will always have a place to live.

George Lamsa Translation
Depart from evil, and do good; and rest for evermore.

Good News Translation
Turn away from evil and do good, and your descendants will always live in the land;

Lexham English Bible
Turn aside from evil and do good and so abide forever.

Literal Translation
Turn away from evil and do good and live forever.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Fle fro euell, & do ye thinge that is good, so shalt thou dwell for euer.

American Standard Version
Depart from evil, and do good; And dwell for evermore.

Bible in Basic English
Be turned from evil, and do good; and your place will be for ever.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.

King James Version (1611)
Depart from euill, and doe good; and dwell for euermore.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Flee from euill & do good: and dwell for euer.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Turn aside from evil, and do good; and dwell for ever.

English Revised Version
Depart from evil, and do good; dwell for evermore.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Bouwe thou awei fro yuel, and do good; and dwelle thou in to the world of world.

Update Bible Version
Depart from evil, and do good; And dwell for evermore.

Webster's Bible Translation
Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.

New King James Version
Depart from evil, and do good; And dwell forevermore.

New Living Translation
Turn from evil and do good, and you will live in the land forever.

New Life Bible
Turn from sin, and do good, so you will live forever.

New Revised Standard
Depart from evil, and do good; so you shall abide forever.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Turn from evil, and do good, and so settle down, unto times age-abiding.

Douay-Rheims Bible
(36-27) Decline from evil and do good, and dwell for ever and ever.

Revised Standard Version
Depart from evil, and do good; so shall you abide for ever.

Young's Literal Translation
Turn aside from evil, and do good, and dwell to the age.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Depart from evil and do good, So you will abide forever.

Contextual Overview

²¹Wicked borrows and never returns; Righteous gives and gives. Generous gets it all in the end; Stingy is cut off at the pass. ²³Stalwart walks in step with God ; his path blazed by God , he's happy. If he stumbles, he's not down for long; God has a grip on his hand. ²⁵I once was young, now I'm a graybeard— not once have I seen an abandoned believer, or his kids out roaming the streets. Every day he's out giving and lending, his children making him proud. ²⁷Turn your back on evil, work for the good and don't quit. God loves this kind of thing, never turns away from his friends. Live this way and you've got it made, but bad eggs will be tossed out. The good get planted on good land and put down healthy roots. Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone, rolls virtue around on his tongue. His heart pumps God's Word like blood through his veins; his feet are as sure as a cat's. Wicked sets a watch for Righteous, he's out for the kill. God , alert, is also on watch— Wicked won't hurt a hair of his head. Wait passionately for God , don't leave the path. He'll give you your place in the sun while you watch the wicked lose it. I saw Wicked bloated like a toad, croaking pretentious nonsense. The next time I looked there was nothing— a punctured bladder, vapid and limp. Keep your eye on the healthy soul, scrutinize the straight life; There's a future in strenuous wholeness. But the willful will soon be discarded; insolent souls are on a dead-end street. The spacious, free life is from God , it's also protected and safe. God -strengthened, we're delivered from evil— when we run to him, he saves us. ²⁹class="psalm-title"> A David Psalm Don't bother your head with braggarts or wish you could succeed like the wicked. In no time they'll shrivel like grass clippings and wilt like cut flowers in the sun. Get insurance with God and do a good deed, settle down and stick to your last. Keep company with God , get in on the best. Open up before God , keep nothing back; he'll do whatever needs to be done: He'll validate your life in the clear light of day and stamp you with approval at high noon. Quiet down before God , be prayerful before him. Don't bother with those who climb the ladder, who elbow their way to the top. Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes—it only makes things worse. Before long the crooks will be bankrupt; God -investors will soon own the store. Before you know it, the wicked will have had it; you'll stare at his once famous place and—nothing! Down-to-earth people will move in and take over, relishing a huge bonanza. Bad guys have it in for the good guys, obsessed with doing them in. But God isn't losing any sleep; to him they're a joke with no punch line. Bullies brandish their swords, pull back on their bows with a flourish. They're out to beat up on the harmless, or mug that nice man out walking his dog. A banana peel lands them flat on their faces— slapstick figures in a moral circus. Less is more and more is less. One righteous will outclass fifty wicked, For the wicked are moral weaklings but the righteous are God -strong. God keeps track of the decent folk; what they do won't soon be forgotten. In hard times, they'll hold their heads high; when the shelves are bare, they'll be full. God-despisers have had it; God 's enemies are finished— Stripped bare like vineyards at harvest time, vanished like smoke in thin air. Wicked borrows and never returns; Righteous gives and gives. Generous gets it all in the end; Stingy is cut off at the pass. Stalwart walks in step with God ; his path blazed by God , he's happy. If he stumbles, he's not down for long; God has a grip on his hand. I once was young, now I'm a graybeard— not once have I seen an abandoned believer, or his kids out roaming the streets. Every day he's out giving and lending, his children making him proud. Turn your back on evil, work for the good and don't quit. God loves this kind of thing, never turns away from his friends. Live this way and you've got it made, but bad eggs will be tossed out. The good get planted on good land and put down healthy roots. ³⁰Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone, rolls virtue around on his tongue. His heart pumps God's Word like blood through his veins; his feet are as sure as a cat's. ³²Wicked sets a watch for Righteous, he's out for the kill. God , alert, is also on watch— Wicked won't hurt a hair of his head.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Depart: Psalms 34:14, Job 28:28, Proverbs 16:6, Proverbs 16:17, Isaiah 1:16, Isaiah 1:17, 2 Timothy 2:19, Titus 2:11-14

do good: Psalms 37:3, 1 Thessalonians 5:15, Titus 3:8, Titus 3:14, Hebrews 13:16, Hebrews 13:21, 1 John 2:16, 1 John 2:17

Reciprocal: Job 1:8 - escheweth Psalms 18:23 - upright Psalms 37:29 - General Psalms 97:10 - hate Proverbs 13:19 - depart Isaiah 56:2 - keepeth his Jeremiah 25:5 - for Amos 5:15 - Hate Galatians 6:10 - do good 1 Peter 3:11 - eschew 3 John 1:11 - follow

Cross-References

Genesis 29:14
Laban said, "You're family! My flesh and blood!" When Jacob had been with him for a month, Laban said, "Just because you're my nephew, you shouldn't work for me for nothing. Tell me what you want to be paid. What's a fair wage?"

Genesis 37:14
He said, "Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are doing and bring me back a report." He sent him off from the valley of Hebron to Shechem.

Genesis 37:17
The man said, "They've left here, but I overheard them say, ‘Let's go to Dothan.'" So Joseph took off, tracked his brothers down, and found them in Dothan.

Genesis 42:21
Then they started talking among themselves. "Now we're paying for what we did to our brother—we saw how terrified he was when he was begging us for mercy. We wouldn't listen to him and now we're the ones in trouble."

Exodus 21:16
"If someone kidnaps a person, the penalty is death, regardless of whether the person has been sold or is still held in possession.

1 Samuel 18:17
One day Saul said to David, "Here is Merab, my eldest daughter. I want to give her to you as your wife. Be brave and bold for my sake. Fight God 's battles!" But all the time Saul was thinking, "The Philistines will kill him for me. I won't have to lift a hand against him."

Nehemiah 5:8
The "Great Protest" A great protest was mounted by the people, including the wives, against their fellow Jews. Some said, "We have big families, and we need food just to survive." Others said, "We're having to mortgage our fields and vineyards and homes to get enough grain to keep from starving." And others said, "We're having to borrow money to pay the royal tax on our fields and vineyards. Look: We're the same flesh and blood as our brothers here; our children are just as good as theirs. Yet here we are having to sell our children off as slaves—some of our daughters have already been sold—and we can't do anything about it because our fields and vineyards are owned by somebody else." I got really angry when I heard their protest and complaints. After thinking it over, I called the nobles and officials on the carpet. I said, "Each one of you is gouging his brother." Then I called a big meeting to deal with them. I told them, "We did everything we could to buy back our Jewish brothers who had to sell themselves as slaves to foreigners. And now you're selling these same brothers back into debt slavery! Does that mean that we have to buy them back again?" They said nothing. What could they say?

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Depart from evil, and do good,.... Depart from evildoers, and their evil ways; join not with them, nor fret and be envious at them; but do acts of beneficence, and all good works; since righteous men, and their seed, are not forsaken, but blessed of God;

:-;

and dwell for evermore; or "thou shalt dwell for evermore" z; see

Psalms 37:3; that is, in everlasting habitations, in the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, Luke 16:9. The Targum is, "that thou mayest dwell in everlasting life".

z ושכן לעולם "et habitabis in seculum", Pagninus, Vatablus, Piscator; so Aben Ezra & Kimchi.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Depart from evil, and do good - This is the sum of all that is said in the psalm; the great lesson inculcated and enforced by all these references to the effects of good and evil conduct. All these results - all that people experience themselves, and all the effects of their conduct on their posterity, enforce the great practical lesson that we should do good and avoid evil. These results of conduct are among the means which God employs to induce men to do right, and to abstain from what is wrong.

And dwell for evermore - That is, dwell in the land: meaning (in accordance with the general drift of the psalm) that righteousness will be connected with length of days and with prosperity; that its effects will be permanent on a family, descending from one generation to another. See the notes at Psalms 37:3.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Psalms 37:27. Depart from evil, and do good — Seeing the above is so, depart from all evil-avoid all sin; and let not this be sufficient, do good. The grace of God ever gives this two-fold power to all who receive it; strength to overcome evil, and strength to do that which is right.

Dwell for evermore. — Be for ever an inhabitant of God's house. This may be also a promise of return to their own land, and of permanent residence there. See Psalms 37:9; Psalms 37:11, &c.