Psalm 58
American Standard Version (1901)
Chapter overview
Psalm 58 denounces rulers who manufacture injustice and remain deaf to correction. Its severe poetic images demand an end to entrenched harm, so communities can see that righteous judgment truly matters.
JusticeCorrupt rulersJudgmentCommunity
1Do ye indeed in silence speak righteousness? Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
2Nay, in heart ye work wickedness; Ye weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth.
3The wicked are estranged from the womb: They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
4Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear,
5Which hearkeneth not to the voice of charmers, Charming never so wisely.
6Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: Break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Jehovah.
7Let them melt away as water that runneth apace: When he aimeth his arrows, let them be as though they were cut off.
8Let them be as a snail which melteth and passeth away, Like the untimely birth of a woman, that hath not seen the sun.
9Before your pots can feel the thorns, He will take them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.
10The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked;
11So that men shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.
American Standard Version (1901) — Public Domain. Where these translations come from.