Psalms
Chapter 58
This psalm speaks to rulers and judges who use their power to do harm instead of justice. David describes them as liars from birth and as snakes that will not listen. He then asks God to break their power and stop them, and he says that when God judges, people will see that living rightly is not wasted and that God really does rule the earth.
Plain reading written for preteens. Clear and complete, at about a fifth grade reading level.
Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
1Do you rulers really speak what is right? Do you judge people fairly, you sons of men?
The KJV word "congregation" here does not mean a gathering for worship. The psalm is addressing the people in power who make judgments over others.
2Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
2No. In your hearts you plan evil. With your own hands you deal out violence across the land.
3The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
3Wicked people turn away from God from the day they are born. They go wrong and tell lies from the start.
4Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
4Their words carry poison, like the venom of a snake. They are like a cobra that shuts its ears,
5Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
5a snake that will not listen to the snake charmer, no matter how skillfully he plays.
6Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.
6God, break the teeth in their mouths. LORD, tear out the fangs of these young lions.
7Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.
7Let them drain away like water that runs off and is gone. When they aim their bows, let their arrows fall broken.
8As 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.
8Let each of them melt away like a slug in its own slime, like a baby born dead who never sees the sun.
9Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
9Before the fire of thorn branches can even warm your cooking pots, God will sweep these people away, green wood and dry alike.
Dry thorn branches burn fast but give little heat, so a pot over them warms slowly. The picture is of something happening before the pot even gets warm.
10The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
10Good people will be glad when they see justice done. They will walk through the blood of the wicked.
11So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.
11Then people will say, "It is true: those who do right are rewarded. It is true: there is a God who judges the earth."
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