Psalm 58
Good News Translation
A Prayer for God to Punish the Wicked[a]
58 Do you rulers[b] ever give a just decision?
Do you judge everyone fairly?
2 No! You think only of the evil you can do,
and commit crimes of violence in the land.
3 Evildoers go wrong all their lives;
they tell lies from the day they are born.
4 They are full of poison like snakes;
they stop up their ears like a deaf cobra,
5 which does not hear the voice of the snake charmer,
or the chant of the clever magician.
6 Break the teeth of these fierce lions, O God.
7 May they disappear like water draining away;
may they be crushed like weeds on a path.[c]
8 May they be like snails that dissolve into slime;
may they be like a baby born dead that never sees the light.
9 Before they know it, they are cut down like weeds;
in his fierce anger God will blow them away
while they are still living.[d]
10 The righteous will be glad when they see sinners punished;
they will wade through the blood of the wicked.
11 People will say, “The righteous are indeed rewarded;
there is indeed a God who judges the world.”
Footnotes
- Psalm 58:1 HEBREW TITLE: A psalm by David.
- Psalm 58:1 rulers; or gods.
- Psalm 58:7 Probable text may … path; Hebrew unclear.
- Psalm 58:9 Verse 9 in Hebrew is unclear.
Psalm 58
King James Version
58 Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
2 Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
4 Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
5 Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
6 Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Lord.
7 Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.
8 As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
9 Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
10 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
