Psalm 58

For the Chief Musician; set to Al-tashheth. A Psalm of David. Michtam.

58 ¹Do ye indeed in silence speak righteousness?

Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?

²Nay, in heart ye work wickedness;

Ye weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth.

³The wicked are estranged from the womb:

They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.

⁴Their poison is like the poison of a serpent:

They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear,

⁵Which hearkeneth not to the voice of charmers,

Charming never so wisely.

⁶Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth:

Break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Jehovah.

⁷Let them melt away as water that runneth apace:

When he aimeth his arrows, let them be as though they were cut off.

⁸Let them be as a snail which melteth and passeth away,

Like the untimely birth of a woman, that hath not seen the sun.

⁹Before your pots can feel the thorns,

He will take them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.

¹⁰The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance:

He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked;

¹¹So that men shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous:

Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.