Psalm 58
Literal Standard Version
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 THE OVERSEER. “DO NOT DESTROY.” A MIKTAM OF DAVID. Is it true, O silent one, that you speak righteously? Do you judge uprightly, O sons of men?
2Even in heart you work iniquities, || In the land you ponder the violence of your hands.
3The wicked have been estranged from the womb, || They have erred from the belly, speaking lies.
4Their poison [is] as poison of a serpent, || As a deaf cobra shutting its ear,
5Which does not listen to the voice of whisperers, || A charmer of most skillful charms.
6O God, break their teeth in their mouth, || Break down the jaw-teeth of young lions, O YHWH.
7They are melted as waters, || They go up and down for themselves, || His arrow proceeds as they cut themselves off.
8He goes on as a snail that melts, || [As] an untimely birth of a woman, || They have not seen the sun.
9Before your pots discern the bramble, || As living, He whirls away in His burning anger.
10The righteous rejoices that he has seen vengeance, || He washes his steps in the blood of the wicked.
11And man says: “Surely fruit [is] for the righteous: Surely there is a God judging in the earth!”
Literal Standard Version — CC BY-SA 4.0. Where these translations come from.
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