1 Do you rulers speak righteousness?

Do you judge uprightly, you people?

2 No, you commit wickedness in your heart;

you distribute violence throughout the land with your hands.

3 The wicked go astray even when they are in the womb;

they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

4 Their poison is like a snake's poison;

they are like a deaf adder that stops up its ears,

5 that pays no attention to the voice of charmers,

no matter how skillful they are.

6 Break their teeth in their mouths, God;

break out the great teeth of the young lions, Yahweh.

7 Let them melt away as water that runs off;

when they shoot their arrows, let them be as though they had no points.

8 Let them be like a snail that melts and passes away,

like the untimely-born child of a woman that never sees the sunlight.

9 Before 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.

10 The righteous will rejoice when he sees God's vengeance;

he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked,

11 so that men will say, “Truly, there is a reward for the righteous person;

truly there is a God who judges the earth.”