Psalm 58. Si vere utique.

1. Do you indeed decree righteousness, you rulers? *
   do you judge the peoples with equity?
2. No; you devise evil in your hearts, *
   and your hands deal out violence in the land.
3. The wicked are perverse from the womb; *
   liars go astray from their birth.
4. They are as venomous as a serpent, *
   they are like the deaf adder which stops its ears,
5. Which does not heed the voice of the charmer, *
   no matter how skillful his charming.
6. O God, break their teeth in their mouths; *
   pull the fangs of the young lions, O Lord.
7. Let them vanish like water that runs off; *
   let them wither like trodden grass.
8. Let them be like the snail that melts away, *
   like a stillborn child that never sees the sun.
9. Before they bear fruit, let them be cut down like a brier; *
   like thorns and thistles let them be swept away.
10. The righteous will be glad when they see the vengeance; *
    they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
11. And they will say, "Surely, there is a reward for the righteous; *
    surely, there is a God who rules in the earth."