Common English Bible CEB
The Message Bible MSG
1 Do you really speak what is right, you gods? Do you really judge humans fairly?
1
Is this any way to run a country? Is there an honest politician in the house?
2 No: in your hearts you plan injustice; your hands do violence on the earth.
2
Behind the scenes you brew cauldrons of evil, behind closed doors you make deals with demons.
3 The wicked backslide from the womb; liars go astray from birth.
3
The wicked crawl from the wrong side of the cradle; their first words out of the womb are lies.
4 Their venom is like a snake's venom— like a deaf cobra's—one that shuts its ears
4
Poison, lethal rattlesnake poison, drips from their forked tongues -
5 so it can't hear the snake charmer's voice or the spells of a skillful enchanter.
5
Deaf to threats, deaf to charm, decades of wax built up in their ears.
6 God, break their teeth out of their mouths! Tear out the lions' jawbones, LORD!
6
God, smash their teeth to bits, leave them toothless tigers.
7 Let them dissolve like water flowing away. When they bend the bow, let their arrows be like headless shafts.
7
Let their lives be buckets of water spilled, all that's left, a damp stain in the sand. Let them be trampled grass worn smooth by the traffic.
8 Like the snail that dissolves into slime, like a woman's stillborn child, let them never see the sun.
8
Let them dissolve into snail slime, be a miscarried fetus that never sees sunlight.
9 Before your pots feel the thorns, whether green or burned up, God will sweep them away!
9
Before what they cook up is half-done, God, throw it out with the garbage!
10 But the righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done, when they wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.
10
The righteous will call up their friends when they see the wicked get their reward, Serve up their blood in goblets as they toast one another,
11 Then it will be said: "Yes, there is a reward for the righteous! Yes, there is a God who judges people on the earth."
11
Everyone cheering, "It's worth it to play by the rules! God's handing out trophies and tending the earth!"
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.