1  Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?*† 2  Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth. 3  The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.‡ 4  Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;§** 5  Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.†† 6  Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD. 7  Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces. 8  As 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. 9  Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.‡‡ 10  The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. 11  So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.§§