A Prayer for God to Punish the Wicked
1 Do you rulers ever give a just decision?
Do you judge everyone fairly?
2 No! You think only of the evil you can do,
and commit crimes of violence in the land.
3 Evildoers go wrong all their lives;
they tell lies from the day they are born.
4 They are full of poison like snakes;
they stop up their ears like a deaf cobra,
5 which does not hear the voice of the snake charmer,
or the chant of the clever magician.
6 Break the teeth of these fierce lions, O God.
7 May they disappear like water draining away;
may they be crushed like weeds on a path.
8 May they be like snails that dissolve into slime;
may they be like a baby born dead that never sees the light.
9 Before they know it, they are cut down like weeds;
in his fierce anger God will blow them away
while they are still living.
10 The righteous will be glad when they see sinners punished;
they will wade through the blood of the wicked.
11 People will say, “The righteous are indeed rewarded;
there is indeed a God who judges the world.”
© Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.