Psalm 58
Words: Brady and Tate, A New Version of the Psalms of David
1 Speak O ye judges of the earth,
if just your sentence be;
Or, must not innocence appeal
to Heav'n from your decree?
2 Your wicked hearts and judgments are
alike by malice swayed;
Your griping hands, by weighty bribes,
to violence betrayed.
3 To virtue strangers from the womb,
their infant steps went wrong;
They prattled slander, and in lies
employed their lisping tongue.
4 No serpent of parched Afric's breed
does ranker poison bear;
The drowsy adder will as soon
unlock his sullen ear.
5 Unmoved by good advice, and deaf
as adders they remain;
From whom thc skilful charmer's voice
can no attention gain.
6 Defeat, O God, their threat'ning rage,
and timely break their pow'r;
Disarm these growing lions' jaws,
ere practiced to devour.
7 Let now their insolence, at height,
like ebbing tides be spent:
Their shivered darts deceive their aim,
when they their bow have bent.
8 Like snails let them dissolve to slime;
like hasty births become,
Unworthy to behold the sun,
and dead within the womb.
9 Ere thorns can make the flesh-pots boil,
tempestuous wrath shall come
From God, and snatch them hence alive
to their eternal doom.
10 The righteous shall rejoice to see
their crimes such vengeance meet,
And saints in persecutors' blood
shall dip their harmless feet.
11 Transgressors then with grief shall see
just men rewards obtain;
And own a God, whose justice will
the guilty earth arraign.
