Psalm 58
Geneva Bible 1599
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
1To him that excelleth. Destroy not. A Psalme of David on Michtam. Is it true? O Congregation, speake ye iustly? O sonnes of men, iudge ye vprightly?
2Yea, rather ye imagine mischiefe in your heart: your hands execute crueltie vpon the earth.
3The wicked are strangers from ye wombe: euen from the belly haue they erred, and speake lyes.
4Their poyson is euen like the poyson of a serpent: like ye deafe adder that stoppeth his eare.
5Which heareth not the voyce of the inchanter, though he be most expert in charming.
6Breake their teeth, O God, in their mouthes: breake the iawes of the yong lions, O Lord.
7Let them melt like the waters, let them passe away: when hee shooteth his arrowes, let them be as broken.
8Let them consume like a snayle that melteth, and like the vntimely fruite of a woman, that hath not seene the sunne.
9As raw flesh before your pots feele the fire of thornes: so let him cary them away as with a whirlewinde in his wrath.
10The righteous shall reioyce when he seeeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feete in the blood of the wicked.
11And men shall say, Verily there is fruite for the righteous: doutlesse there is a God that iudgeth in the earth.
Geneva Bible 1599 — Public Domain. Where these translations come from.