< Psalms 58 >
1 Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
When you mighty men speak, you never say what is right; you never decide things about people justly [RHQ]!
2 Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
No, in your inner beings you think only about doing what is wrong, and you commit violent crimes in this land [of Israel].
3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
Wicked people do wrong things and tell lies from the time that they are born [DOU].
4 Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
God, show in the heavens how great you are! And show your glory to people all over the earth! What wicked people say [injures people like] the venom of a snake [MET]; They refuse to listen to good advice, [as though they were] cobras that were deaf [MET]!
5 Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
As a result, [like a snake that does not respond when] a charmer plays a flute or when someone sings magic songs, [they do not pay attention when others rebuke them].
6 Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Yhwh.
God, as for these enemies who [want to attack me like] young lions, break their teeth!
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.
Cause them to disappear like water disappears [in dry ground]! Cause the arrows that they shoot to have no (heads/sharp points)!
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.
Cause them to become like snails that disappear in the slime; cause them to be like babies that are born dead!
9 Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
Get rid of them [as fast as] thornbushes are blown away [after they are cut] (OR, [as fast as] a fire heats a pot over burning thorns).
10 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
Righteous people will rejoice when they see wicked people being punished as they deserve; they will wash their feet in the blood of wicked people.
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.
[Then] people will say, “It is true that there is a reward for righteous people; and there is indeed a God who judges people justly here on the earth!”