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Psalms 14

It opens with the line everyone quotes: "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God'" (v.1) — but the fool's atheism is practical, not philosophical; it shows up as corrupt deeds, not arguments. God scans humanity from heaven and finds the rot total: "no one who does good, no, not one" (v.3). Watch the verdict sweep wide (vv.1-3), then narrow to a specific crime — those who "eat up my people as they eat bread" (v.4) — before closing with a homesick cry for rescue out of Zion (v.7).

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Psalms 14 (WEB)
  1. 1

    The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt. They have done abominable deeds. There is no one who does good.

  2. 2

    The LORD looked down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any who understood, who sought after God.

  3. 3

    They have all gone aside. They have together become corrupt. There is no one who does good, no, not one.

  4. 4

    Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on the LORD?

  5. 5

    There they were in great fear, for God is in the generation of the righteous.

  6. 6

    You frustrate the plan of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge.

  7. 7

    Oh that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people, then Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

A psalm with a twin

Psalm 14 reappears almost word-for-word as Psalm 53; the chief difference is the divine name. Reading them as a pair shows how a single text could be re-sung in different collections.

The bleak survey is not the last word. Verse 5 insists "God is in the generation of the righteous," and verse 7 longs for Zion to send salvation — the corruption is real, but so is a remnant and a hope.

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