To the Chief Musician. Destroy not. Michtam of David

1 Do ye indeed, O ye congregation! speak righteousness? Uprightly do ye judge? O ye sons of men!

2 Yea rather in your heart wickedness ye plot, On the earth violence your hands weigh out.

3 Estranged are the ungodly from the womb, They have gone astray from their birth speaking falsehood.

4 They have poison like the poison of a serpent, [They are] like the deaf adder which stoppeth her ear;

5 Which listeneth not to the voice of the enchanter, -- Of him who exerciseth enchantment skillfully.

6 O God! break their teeth in their mouth: The jawbones of the lions break, O Jehovah!

7 Let them melt away like water, let them be gone: Let them bend their bow, and let their arrows be as if broken.

8 Like a snail which melteth away let them vanish; Like the untimely birth of a woman which doth not see the sun.

9 Before your pots can feel the fire of the bramble, Like flesh yet raw as a whirlwind he shall carry him away.

10 Rejoice shall the righteous when he seeth the vengeance; His hands he shall wash in the blood of the ungodly.

11 And men [334] shall say, "Truly there is fruit for the righteous, "Truly there is a God who judgeth in the earth."

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Footnotes:

[334] Literally "man."