Psalms 58:3–8

⁵Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

⁸Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb.

¹⁵Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.

³Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

¹⁴What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

¹⁰I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly.

³¶ Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb:

⁸But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

³They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah.

¹¹Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better.

¹⁷For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the Lord.

¹³Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

³³Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

⁸And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.

¹⁴Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him.

¹⁶He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper’s tongue shall slay him.

³³Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

⁷¶ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

¹⁷For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the Lord.

¹¹Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

³And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.

⁷Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.

¹⁴For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him.

¹⁷And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.

¹⁰The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

¹¹The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion’s whelps are scattered abroad.

⁸¶ And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.

¹⁵Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.

¹²Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.

²¹Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and, lo, it shall not be bound up to be healed, to put a roller to bind it, to make it strong to hold the sword.

²²Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will break his arms, the strong, and that which was broken; and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand.

²³And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.

²⁴And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword in his hand: but I will break Pharaoh’s arms, and he shall groan before him with the groanings of a deadly wounded man.

²⁵But I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and the arms of Pharaoh shall fall down; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall stretch it out upon the land of Egypt.

²⁶And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the Lord.

⁴For thus hath the Lord spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion, and for the hill thereof.

²⁴Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.

¹³Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

⁵And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.

¹⁰The wicked shall see it, and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away: the desire of the wicked shall perish.

¹⁵Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away.

⁷Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt:

⁹And she said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you.

¹⁰For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.

¹¹And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.

³Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:

¹⁰And he also that is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, shall utterly melt: for all Israel knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they which be with him are valiant men.

¹⁴I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

⁷But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.

⁸So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.

¹⁶Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.

³¶ If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

¹⁰But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

³⁵I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.

³⁶Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

³⁵Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.