Psalm
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Psalm 58

Prayer for the Punishment of the Wicked.

For the choir director; set to [a]Al-tashheth. A [b]Mikhtam of David.

1Do you indeed [c]speak righteousness, O [d]gods?
Do you judge [e]uprightly, O sons of men?
2 No, in heart you work unrighteousness;
On earth you weigh out the violence of your hands.
3 The wicked are estranged from the womb;
These who speak lies go astray from [f]birth.
4 They have venom like the venom of a serpent;
Like a deaf cobra that stops up its ear,
5 So that it does not hear the voice of [g]charmers,
Or a skillful caster of spells.

6 O God, shatter their teeth in their mouth;
Break out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord.
7 Let them flow away like water that runs off;
When he [h]aims his arrows, let them be as [i]headless shafts.
8 Let them be as a snail which [j]melts away as it goes along,
Like the miscarriages of a woman which never see the sun.
9 Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns
He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the [k]green and the burning alike.

10 The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
He will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 And men will say, “Surely there is a [l]reward for the righteous;
Surely there is a God who judges [m]on earth!”

Footnotes

  1. Psalm 58:1 Lit Do Not Destroy
  2. Psalm 58:1 Possibly Epigrammatic Poem or Atonement Psalm
  3. Psalm 58:1 Another reading is speak righteousness in silence
  4. Psalm 58:1 Or mighty ones or judges
  5. Psalm 58:1 Or uprightly the sons of men
  6. Psalm 58:3 Lit the womb
  7. Psalm 58:5 Or whisperers
  8. Psalm 58:7 Lit bends
  9. Psalm 58:7 Lit though they were cut off
  10. Psalm 58:8 I.e. secretes slime
  11. Psalm 58:9 Lit living
  12. Psalm 58:11 Lit fruit
  13. Psalm 58:11 Or in
Psalm 58