< Psalms 58 >
1 When you mighty men speak, you never say what is right; you never decide things about people justly [RHQ]!
For the Chief Musician; [set to] Al-tashheth. [A Psalm] of David: Michtam. Do ye indeed in silence speak righteousness? 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].
Yea, 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 be 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: [they are] like the deaf adder that stoppeth 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 hearkeneth not to the voice of charmers, charming never 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 LORD.
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 runneth apace: when he aimeth 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!
[Let them be] as a snail which melteth and passeth away: [like] the untimely birth of a woman, that hath 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 shall 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.
The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth 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, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.