The Psalms 58

A Prayer for the Punishment of the Wicked

To the chief Musician, Altas’chith, Michtam of David.

Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation?

Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?

Yea, in heart ye work wickedness;

ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.

The wicked are estranged from the womb:

they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

Their poison is like the poison of a serpent:

they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;

which will not hearken to the voice of charmers,

charming never so wisely.

Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth:

break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.

Let them melt away as waters which run continually:

when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows,

let them be as cut in pieces.

As a snail which melteth,

let every one of them pass away:

like the untimely birth of a woman,

that they may not see the sun.

Before your pots can feel the thorns,

he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance:

he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous:

verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

Published by The American Bible Society