58:1 [For the music director; set to ①Al-tashheth. A ②Mikhtam of David.]
Do you indeed ③speak righteousness, you ④gods?
Do you judge ⑤fairly, you sons of mankind?
▷ ①Lit Do Not Destroy ②Possibly Epigrammatic Poem or Atonement Psalm ③Another reading is speak righteousness in silence ④Or mighty ones; or judges ⑤Or mankind fairly?
58:2 No, in heart you practice injustice;
On earth you clear a way for the violence of your hands.
58:3 The wicked have turned away from the womb;
These who speak lies go astray from ①birth.
▷ ①Lit the womb
58:4 They have venom like the venom of a serpent;
Like a deaf cobra that stops up its ear,
58:5 So that it does not hear the voice of ①charmers,
Or a skillful caster of spells.
▷ ①Or whisperers
58:6 God, shatter their teeth in their mouth;
Break out the fangs of the young lions, LORD.
58:7 May they flow away like water that runs off;
When he ①aims his arrows, may they be as ②headless shafts.
▷ ①Lit bends ②Lit though they were cut off
58:8 May they be like a snail which goes along in slime,
Like the miscarriage of a woman that never sees the sun.
58:9 Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns
He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the ①green and the burning alike.
▷ ①Lit living
58:10 The righteous will rejoice when he sees vengeance;
He will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
58:11 And people will say, “There certainly is ①a reward for the righteous;
There certainly is a God who judges on the earth!”
▷ ①Lit fruit