Psalm 1:1-6

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; (2) but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (3) He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (4) The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. (5) Therefore the wicked will 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 will perish.

Notice how verse 1 is put in the past tense?

The words of someone who has ‘walked in the counsel of the wicked’, ’stood in the way of sinners’, and ’sat in the seat of the scornful.’, but has returned to the LORD and committed himself to Faith and Obedience. One that has put those behaviors behind him and is delighting in the Law of the LORD, so busy is he doing that, that he in fact is contemplating It day and night in verse 2. It’s not “a one time covers all”. It’s day and night constant pondering and practicing. As a result of this day and night meditation, busying oneself with The Law of the Lord, believing it and working it in ones Life, one is transformed into ‘a tree planted by streams of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf doth not wither; and in whatsoever he doeth he shall prosper.’, as stated in verse 3. The next two verses are very interesting, because read together as one unit, they indicate that ‘the wicked’ (rasha – morally wrong, actively bad person, one who willfully violates the Law of God) are so light-weight in the eyes of God that ‘they are like the chaff which the wind driveth away’ and don’t even make it to the judgement (‘not stand’ is also rendered ‘make to’ by Strong)! The parallelism in verse 5 (between ‘wicked[...]the judgment’ and ’sinners [...]‘the righteous’) where ‘wicked’ and ’sinners’ are synonymous in connotation as are ‘the judgement’ and ‘the righteous’, tells us that the verse is speaking about people who are considered criminals (’sinners’ is also rendered ‘offender’, ‘criminal’ i.e someone who is actively violating the Law of God) and the righteous are those who are not, as jugment here is rendered ‘mishpat’ (court, lawful) and righteous is rendered ‘tzaddiq’ which also means ‘lawful’. The last verse is really interesting as it conveys something that might not be immidiately visible. There is of course the visible meaning, that God approves of the righteous and keeps him, but not of the wicked. However looking a bit closer, the verse can be read to indicate something that takes place within one and the same person as he busies himself with practice of Faith through Obedience . ‘The way’ (‘derech’, meaning both literal path [street] and manner of action, behavior) changes under the watchful and caring eye of God and as the righteous progresses in practice and understanding, what used to be an active manner of violation is slowly transformed and eventually perishes from his person.
Verse 6, as was suggested to me by my wife, could also be read to mean that eventually only the righteous path will remain and the wicked path will be gone.

Amen