1To the chief Musician, A Psalm for the sons of Korah. Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world:
2Both low and high, rich and poor, together.
3My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.
4I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp.
5Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
6They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches;
7None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:
8(For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:)
9That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption.
10For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others.
11Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names.
12Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish.
13This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah.
14Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.
15But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah.
16Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased;
17For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.
18Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself.
19He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light.
20Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.
About this edition & resources
Optional section headings follow the King James Bible Online book outlines, credited there to OpenBible. Overlapping parent headings are omitted in favour of more specific passages. Headings are editorial aids, separate from Scripture. Every verse remains available; gaps in the source outline show a reference without an invented title. Source, reference corrections and selection rule.
The KJV text follows the 1769 tradition. Text and verse-linked Strong’s tags are provided by Scrollmapper / CrossWire KJV. Historical KJV text is public domain in many countries; publication rights in the United Kingdom are administered under the Crown’s prerogative.
The optional 1611 text preserves the original spelling and wording in the aruljohn/Bible-kjv-1611 transcription. Its 66-book, 31,102-verse structure has been validated against this reader’s references.
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge: historical cross-references credited to SoulLiberty / MetaV in the digital source edition. The imported references preserve the source’s direction and are shown using this reader’s KJV text. Attribution and source notice · Download reference data.
Strong’s dictionaries: James Strong (1890); digital editions by Open Scriptures and Ulrik Petersen, licensed CC BY-SA as described in the original notices. The transformed lexicon and verse tags are available in the dictionary dataset and verse-tag dataset. Dictionary text is preserved; application import normalizes numeric IDs and groups words by verse.
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary: historical text, digital source Lyteword (CC0). Commentary is organized into verse ranges. Source manifest & verification counts. Curated topics and stories are navigation aids, not additional Scripture.
The Pulpit Commentary and Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: public-domain editions digitized by SermonIndex. Edition sources and import notes. Historical commentary is distinct from Scripture; source passage ranges and chapter introductions are preserved.
The digital KJV/Strong’s source declares GPL licensing; the original files and transformation script are available in the source-data archive. Dictionary digital editions retain their CC BY-SA licensing and original attribution. The missing 2 Kings 1 commentary chapter is supplied from CCEL’s historical Matthew Henry text.