New Living Translation NLT
King James Version KJV
1 Justice—do you rulers know the meaning of the word? Do you judge the people fairly?
1
Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
2 No! You plot injustice in your hearts. You spread violence throughout the land.
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Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
3 These wicked people are born sinners; even from birth they have lied and gone their own way.
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The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
4 They spit venom like deadly snakes; they are like cobras that refuse to listen,
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Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
5 ignoring the tunes of the snake charmers, no matter how skillfully they play.
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Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
6 Break off their fangs, O God! Smash the jaws of these lions, O LORD !
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Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.
7 May they disappear like water into thirsty ground. Make their weapons useless in their hands.
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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 May they be like snails that dissolve into slime, like a stillborn child who will never see the sun.
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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 God will sweep them away, both young and old, faster than a pot heats over burning thorns.
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Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
10 The godly will rejoice when they see injustice avenged. They will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.
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The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 Then at last everyone will say, “There truly is a reward for those who live for God; surely there is a God who judges justly here on earth.”
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So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
The King James Version is in the public domain.