Do ye speak Righteousness, indeed

1. Do ye speak righteousness, indeed,
While ye confederate sit?
Or is, ye sons of earthly men,
Your judgment just, and fit?
2. Yea, rather foul, malicious deeds,
Your wicked heart intends;
Thus swayed, you openly weigh out
The violence of your hands.

3. Degenerate race! that, from the womb,
Strangers to virtue, rise;
As soon as born, they go astray,
And give themselves to lies.
4. Their words, like serpent's poison, wound;
Deaf asps, they stop their ear;
5. The charmer's wisest charms are vain,
They'll no instruction hear.

6. O God, their mouth, so used to blood,
Of their sharp teeth disarm;
Break the young lion's teeth, O Lord,
Nor leave them power to harm.
7. Let them dissolve as mounts of snow
Away, whose waters soak;
May all his arrows when he brings
Them to his bow, be broke.

8. As slimy snails which melt away,
So may they wade each one;
Like an untimely birth that dies
And never sees the sun.
9. Quicker than thorns can seeth the pot,
He'll seize on them alive;
In his hot wrath away them chase,
And with a whirlwind drive.

10. Such righteous vengeance will excite,
The triumphs of the good;
Who, victors o'er such wicked men,
Shall wash their feet in blood.
11. Then men shall say, "sure for the just,
There is a kind reward;
Sure, there's a God, who judgeth right,
And doth the earth regard."

A New Version of the Psalms of David, 1752