1 Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the LORD’s law. On his law he meditates day and night. 3 He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.
Psalm 1 — Blessed Is the Man
The gateway psalm of the whole Psalter, setting out the two ways a life can go and what each one produces.
PsalmBy Brother MichaelUpdated Aug 3, 2026
What Psalm 1 Means
Psalm 1 is the doorway to the Psalter, and it was placed first deliberately. Before a single prayer is offered, the book states the choice everything else assumes: there are two ways to live, and they end differently. The opening is a series of refusals. The blessed man does not walk, stand, or sit with the wicked, and the three verbs describe a drift rather than a decision. You walk past something, then you stop and stand near it, then you sit down and stay. Almost nobody chooses the wrong life outright. They stop moving somewhere they only meant to pass. Against that, one image: a tree planted by streams of water. Not growing wild but planted, deliberately placed near a source, and therefore fruitful in its season and not withered when the weather turns. The point is not that the righteous avoid drought. It is that they are rooted where the water is. The contrast the psalm gives the wicked is chaff, the husk left after threshing, which has the shape of grain and none of the substance and is carried off by the first wind. It is not a picture of punishment so much as of weightlessness.
Liturgical Use in the Catholic Church
Psalm 1 opens the first week of the Liturgy of the Hours and is used at the Office of Readings. Because it is the Psalter's preface, it is also the psalm most often used to introduce children and new Catholics to praying the psalms at all.
Praying Psalm 1 — A Simple Practice
Read it slowly once and notice the three verbs in the first verse. Then ask which of the three you are currently doing about something you know is not good for you, because the psalm is unusually precise about the stages. It is short enough to memorise in a week, and it functions well as the psalm you return to whenever the habit of daily prayer has lapsed and you are starting again.
Related Prayers
Frequently Asked Questions
It sets out the two ways a life can go: rooted like a tree planted by water, or weightless like chaff blown away. It is placed first in the Psalter deliberately, as the choice every psalm after it assumes.
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