1: (To the chief Musician. 'Destroy not.' Of David. Michtam.) Is righteousness indeed silent? Do ye speak it? Do ye judge with equity, ye sons of men? 2: Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth. 3: The wicked go astray from the womb; they err as soon as they are born, speaking lies. 4: Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: [they are] like the deaf adder which stoppeth her ear; 5: Which doth not hearken to the voice of enchanters, of one charming ever so wisely. 6: O God, break their teeth in their mouth; break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Jehovah. 7: Let them melt away as waters that flow off; when he aimeth his arrows, let them be as blunted: 8: Let them be as a snail that melteth as it passeth away; [like] the untimely birth of a woman, let them not see the sun. 9: Before your pots feel the thorns, green or burning, -- they shall be whirled away. 10: The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the wicked: 11: And men shall say, Verily there is fruit for the righteous; verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.
