Psalms 58
1 When you mighty men speak, you never say what is right; you never decide things about people justly [RHQ]!
Do ye indeed speak righteousness in silence? Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
2 No, in your inner beings you think only about doing what is wrong, and you commit violent crimes in this land [of Israel].
No! In heart ye work wickedness. Ye weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth.
3 Wicked people do wrong things and tell lies from the time that they are born [DOU].
The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
4 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]!
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops her ear,
5 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].
which hearkens not to the voice of charmers, charming ever so wisely.
6 God, as for these enemies who [want to attack me like] young lions, break their teeth!
Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth. Break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Jehovah.
7 Cause them to disappear like water disappears [in dry ground]! Cause the arrows that they shoot to have no (heads/sharp points)!
Let them melt away as water that runs with haste. When he aims his arrows, let them be as though they were cut off,
8 Cause them to become like snails that disappear in the slime; cause them to be like babies that are born dead!
as a snail which melts and passes away, as the untimely birth of a woman, that has not seen the sun.
9 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).
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he will take them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.
10 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.
A righteous man shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked,
11 [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!”
so that men shall say, Truly there is a reward for the righteous man. Truly there is a God who judges in the earth.
