Psalms 58

¹ [For the choirmaster Tune: 'Do not destroy' Of David In a quiet voice] Divine as you are, do you trulygive upright verdicts? do you judge fairly the children of Adam?

² No! You devise injustice in your hearts, and with your hands you administer tyranny on the earth.

³ Since the womb they have gone astray, the wicked, on the wrong path since their birth, with theirunjust verdicts.

⁴ They are poisonous as any snake, deaf as an adder that blocks its ears

⁵ so as not to hear the magician's music, however skilful his spel s.

⁶ God, break the teeth in their mouths, snap off the fangs of these young lions, Yahweh.

⁷ May they drain away like water running to waste, may they wither like trampled grass,

⁸ like the slug that melts as it moves or a still-born child that never sees the sun.

⁹ Before they sprout thorns like the bramble, green or burnt up, may retribution whirl them away.

¹⁰ The upright wil rejoice to see vengeance done, and wil bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.

¹¹ 'So', people wil say, 'the upright does have a reward; there is a God to dispense justice on earth.'