1Do you rulers speak righteousness?
Do you judge uprightly, you people?

2No, you commit wickedness in your heart;
you distribute violence throughout the land with your hands.

3The wicked go astray even when they are in the womb;
they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

4Their poison is like a snake's poison;
they are like a deaf adder that stops up its ears,

5that pays no attention to the voice of charmers,
no matter how skillful they are.

6Break their teeth in their mouths, God;
break out the great teeth of the young lions, Yahweh.

7Let them melt away as water that runs off;
when they shoot their arrows, let them be as though they had no points.

8Let them be like a snail that melts and passes away,
like the untimely-born child of a woman that never sees the sunlight.

9Before your pots can feel the thorn's burning heat,
he will take them away with a whirlwind, the green thorns and the burning thorns alike.

10The righteous will rejoice when he sees God's vengeance;
he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked,

11so that men will say, “Truly, there is a reward for the righteous person;
truly there is a God who judges the earth.”