Psalms of David 58
58
PSALM LVIII.
C. M.
1SPEAK O ye judges of the earth,
If just your sentence be;
Or, must not innocence appeal
To Heav’n from your decree?
2Your wicked hearts and judgments are
Alike by malice sway’d;
Your griping hands, by weighty bribes,
To violence betray’d.
3To virtue strangers from the womb,
Their infant steps went wrong;
They prattled slander, and in lies
Employ’d their lisping tongue.
4No serpent of parch’d Afric’s breed
Does ranker poison bear;
The drowsy adder will as soon
Unlock his sullen ear.
5Unmov’d by good advice, and deaf
As adders they remain;
From whom the skilful charmer’s voice
Can no attention gain.
6Defeat, O God, their threat’ning rage,
And timely break their pow’r;
Disarm these growing lions’ jaws,
Ere practis’d to devour.
7Let now their insolence, at height,
Like ebbing tides be spent:
Their shiver’d darts deceive their aim,
When they their bow have bent.
8Like snails let them dissolve to slime;
Like hasty births become,
Unworthy to behold the sun,
And dead within the womb.
9Ere thorns can make the flesh-pots boil,
Tempestuous wrath shall come
From God, and snatch them hence alive
To their eternal doom.
10The righteous shall rejoice to see
Their crimes such vengeance meet,
And saints in persecutors’ blood
Shall dip their harmless feet.
11Transgressors then with grief shall see
Just men rewards obtain;
And own a God, whose justice will
The guilty earth arraign.
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Psalms of David 58: MP1696
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First published 1696, improved 1698.
Psalms of David 58
58
PSALM LVIII.
C. M.
1SPEAK O ye judges of the earth,
If just your sentence be;
Or, must not innocence appeal
To Heav’n from your decree?
2Your wicked hearts and judgments are
Alike by malice sway’d;
Your griping hands, by weighty bribes,
To violence betray’d.
3To virtue strangers from the womb,
Their infant steps went wrong;
They prattled slander, and in lies
Employ’d their lisping tongue.
4No serpent of parch’d Afric’s breed
Does ranker poison bear;
The drowsy adder will as soon
Unlock his sullen ear.
5Unmov’d by good advice, and deaf
As adders they remain;
From whom the skilful charmer’s voice
Can no attention gain.
6Defeat, O God, their threat’ning rage,
And timely break their pow’r;
Disarm these growing lions’ jaws,
Ere practis’d to devour.
7Let now their insolence, at height,
Like ebbing tides be spent:
Their shiver’d darts deceive their aim,
When they their bow have bent.
8Like snails let them dissolve to slime;
Like hasty births become,
Unworthy to behold the sun,
And dead within the womb.
9Ere thorns can make the flesh-pots boil,
Tempestuous wrath shall come
From God, and snatch them hence alive
To their eternal doom.
10The righteous shall rejoice to see
Their crimes such vengeance meet,
And saints in persecutors’ blood
Shall dip their harmless feet.
11Transgressors then with grief shall see
Just men rewards obtain;
And own a God, whose justice will
The guilty earth arraign.
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:
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First published 1696, improved 1698.