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31 Do not envy the violent
    and choose none of their ways:(A)

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17 Do not let your heart envy sinners,(A)
    but only those who always fear the Lord;[a]

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Footnotes

  1. 23:17 Those whom one admires or associates with exercise enormous influence. Do not join the wicked, who are a doomed group. The warning is repeated in 24:1–2, 19–20.

Psalm 37[a]

The Fate of Sinners and the Reward of the Just

Of David.

Aleph

Do not be provoked by evildoers;
    do not envy those who do wrong.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. Psalm 37 The Psalm responds to the problem of evil, which the Old Testament often expresses as a question: why do the wicked prosper and the good suffer? The Psalm answers that the situation is only temporary. God will reverse things, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked here on earth. The perspective is concrete and earthbound: people’s very actions place them among the ranks of the good or wicked. Each group or “way” has its own inherent dynamism—eventual frustration for the wicked, eventual reward for the just. The Psalm is an acrostic, i.e., each section begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each section has its own imagery and logic.