Psalms, 58

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

1. To the chief Musician, Altaschith, Michtam of David. Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?

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

2. Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.

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

3. The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

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

4. Their poison [is] like the poison of a serpent: [they are] like the deaf adder [that] stoppeth her ear;

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

5. Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.

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

6. Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.

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

7. Let them melt away as waters [which] run continually: [when] he bendeth [his bow to shoot] his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.

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

8. As a snail [which] melteth, let [every one of them] pass away: [like] the untimely birth of a woman, [that] they may not see the sun.

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

9. Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in [his] wrath.

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

10. The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

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

11. So that a man shall say, Verily [there is] a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.