| International Standard Version | NET Bible |
| 1How is it that by remaining silent you can speak righteously? How can you judge people fairly? | 1For the music director; according to the al-tashcheth style; a prayer of David. Do you rulers really pronounce just decisions? Do you judge people fairly? |
| 2As a matter of fact, in your heart you plan iniquities! In the land your hands are violent! | 2No! You plan how to do what is unjust; you deal out violence in the earth. |
| 3The wicked go astray from the womb; they go astray, telling lies even from birth. | 3The wicked turn aside from birth; liars go astray as soon as they are born. |
| 4Their venom is like a poisonous snake; even like a deaf serpent that shuts its ears, | 4Their venom is like that of a snake, like a deaf serpent that does not hear, |
| 5refusing to hear the voice of the snake charmer, the cunning enchanter. | 5that does not respond to the magicians, or to a skilled snake-charmer. |
| 6God, shatter their teeth in their mouths; LORD, break the fangs of the young lions! | 6O God, break the teeth in their mouths! Smash the jawbones of the lions, O LORD! |
| 7May they flow away like rain water that runs off, may they become like someone who shoots broken arrows. | 7Let them disappear like water that flows away! Let them wither like grass! |
| 8May they be like a snail that dries up as it crawls; like a woman's stillborn baby, who never saw the sun. | 8Let them be like a snail that melts away as it moves along! Let them be like stillborn babies that never see the sun! |
| 9Before your clay pots are placed on a fire of burning thorns— whether green or ablaze— wrath will sweep them away like a storm. | 9Before the kindling is even placed under your pots, he will sweep it away along with both the raw and cooked meat. |
| 10The righteous person will rejoice when he sees your vengeance; when he washes his feet in the blood of the wicked. | 10The godly will rejoice when they see vengeance carried out; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked. |
| 11A person will say, "Certainly, the righteous are rewarded; certainly there is a God who judges the earth." | 11Then observers will say, "Yes indeed, the godly are rewarded! Yes indeed, there is a God who judges in the earth!" |
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