Psalm 58:1-11
To the director. “Do not bring to ruin.” Of David. Mikʹtam.*
58 [In YOUR] silence can YOU really speak about righteousness itself?+Can YOU judge in uprightness itself, O YOU sons of men?*+
2 How much, rather, do YOU with the heart practice outright unrighteousness in the earth,+[And] prepare the road for the very violence of YOUR hands!+
3 The wicked ones have been perverts from the womb;+They have wandered about from the belly onward;They are speaking lies.+
4 The venom of theirs is like the venom of the serpent,+Deaf like the cobra that stops up its ear,+
5 That will not listen to the voice of charmers,+Though someone wise is binding with spells.*+
6 O God, knock out their teeth in their mouth.+Break down the very jawbones of maned young lions, O Jehovah.
7 May they dissolve as into waters that go their way;+May he bend [the bow for] his arrows as they collapse.+
8 Like a snail melting away he walks;*Like a miscarriage of a woman they will certainly not behold the sun.+
9 Before YOUR pots feel the [kindled] bramble,+The live green as well as the burning, he will carry them off as a stormy wind.+
10 The righteous one will rejoice because he has beheld the vengeance.+His steps he will bathe in the blood of the wicked one.+
11 And mankind will say:+ “Surely there is fruitage for the righteous one.+Surely there exists a God that is judging* in the earth.”+
Footnotes
^ See 16:Sup ftn.
^ Or, “earthling man.” Heb., ʼa·dhamʹ.
^ See App 7A regarding cobras responding to sound.
^ Or, “leaving a slimy track.”
^ “That is judging.” Heb., sho·phetimʹ, pl. to agree with ʼElo·himʹ, “God,” which is pl. to denote excellence and grandeur; LXXSyVg make the participle sing., “that is judging them.”
