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Psalm 58: Si vere utique

Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 664. In the 30-day Psalter it is read on day 11, at Morning Prayer.

1

Do you indeed decree righteousness, you rulers? *

do you judge the peoples with equity?

2

No; you devise evil in your hearts, *

and your hands deal out violence in the land.

3

The wicked are perverse from the womb; *

liars go astray from their birth.

4

They are as venomous as a serpent, *

they are like the deaf adder which stops its ears,

5

Which does not heed the voice of the charmer, *

no matter how skillful his charming.

6

O God, break their teeth in their mouths; *

pull the fangs of the young lions, O LORD.

7

Let them vanish like water that runs off; *

let them wither like trodden grass.

8

Let them be like the snail that melts away, *

like a stillborn child that never sees the sun.

9

Before they bear fruit, let them be cut down like a brier; *

like thorns and thistles let them be swept away.

10

The righteous will be glad when they see the vengeance; *

they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.

11

And they will say,

"Surely, there is a reward for the righteous; *

surely, there is a God who rules in the earth."

When it is appointed