Psalm 58

¹Do you indeed decree righteousness, you rulers? *do you judge the peoples with equity?

²No; you devise evil in your hearts, *and your hands deal out violence in the land.

³The wicked are perverse from the womb; *liars go astray from their birth.

⁴They are as venomous as a serpent, *they are like the deaf adder which stops its ears,

⁵Which does not heed the voice of the charmer, *no matter how skillful his charming.

⁶O God, break their teeth in their mouths; *pull the fangs of the young lions, O Lord.

⁷Let them vanish like water that runs off; *let them wither like trodden grass.

⁸Let them be like the snail that melts away, *like a stillborn child that never sees the sun.

⁹Before they bear fruit, let them be cut down like a brier; *like thorns and thistles let them be swept away.

¹⁰The righteous will be glad when they see the vengeance; *they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.

¹¹And they will say, “Surely, there is a reward for the righteous; *surely, there is a God who rules in the earth.”