Psalms

58 Do you indeed, notables, speak right,

judge even-handedly the sons of men?

2 Nay, at heart you practice foul play,

in the country your hands aim for outrage.

3 Tyrants are congenital perverts;

Falsifiers have gone wrong ever since they came out of their mother’s bodies.

4 The venom they have is the counterpart of a snake’s venom;

like a deaf viper that plugs its ear,

5 That will not listen to the voice of charmers,

of wisest sorcerer.

6 God, demolish their teeth in their mouths!

break down young lions’ fangs, Jehovah!

7 Let them dissolve like water running down a slope;

like dead grass let them be mowed—

8 Like a slug that melts off as it goes along,

an abortion that has not looked upon the sun.

9 Let their shoots dry out and be cut off

like thornbushes, like briers, like weed-stalks, be blown away.

11 That mankind may say “O, but the right-doer does get fruit;

O, but there are gods that judge on earth.”