1 Are ye, indeed, silent [when] righteousness, ye should speak? When, with equity, ye should judge, O ye sons of men? 2Aye! ye all do work, perversity,—Throughout the land, your hands, weigh out, violence! 3Lawless men have been estranged from birth, They have gone astray from their nativity, speaking falsehood; 4Their poison, is like unto the poison of a serpent, Like the deaf adder, that stoppeth his ear; 5That will not hearken to the voice of whisperers, Though the wise one try to bind him with spells.

6O God! break away their teeth in their mouth, The biters of the young lions, knock thou out, O Yahweh! 7Let such men flow away like waters that disperse themselves: He prepareth his arrow, Like [grass] let them be cut down: 8Like a snail, which melteth away as it goeth, An untimely birth of a woman, which hath not seen the sun: 9Before your kettles can perceive the [kindled] bramble, Be he green or be he withered, he shall be swept away. 10The righteous man will rejoice when he hath seen an avenging, His feet, will he bathe in the blood of the lawless one:— 11So that a son of earth may say—Surely there is fruit for the righteous man! Surely there are gods who judge in the earth!