Psalm 58 (Tate & Brady)

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.