The Message Bible MSG
King James Version KJV
1 Is this any way to run a country? Is there an honest politician in the house?
1
Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
2 Behind the scenes you brew cauldrons of evil, behind closed doors you make deals with demons.
2
Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
3 The wicked crawl from the wrong side of the cradle; their first words out of the womb are lies.
3
The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
4 Poison, lethal rattlesnake poison, drips from their forked tongues -
4
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
5 Deaf to threats, deaf to charm, decades of wax built up in their ears.
5
Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
6 God, smash their teeth to bits, leave them toothless tigers.
6
Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.
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.
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 Let them dissolve into snail slime, be a miscarried fetus that never sees sunlight.
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 what they cook up is half-done, God, throw it out with the garbage!
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 will call up their friends when they see the wicked get their reward, Serve up their blood in goblets as they toast one another,
10
The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 Everyone cheering, "It's worth it to play by the rules! God's handing out trophies and tending the earth!"
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.
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.
The King James Version is in the public domain.