Psalms
(Of the Director; “Do Not Spoil”; of David’s, a mictam.)
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.
10 Let a right-doer be glad because he has looked upon vengeance, let him bathe his feet in the wrong-doer’s blood,
11 That mankind may say “O, but the right-doer does get fruit;
O, but there are gods that judge on earth.”