You have nothing to do with corrupt judges, who make injustice legal,

who plot against good people and sentence the innocent to death.

No one can keep from dying or put off the day of death. That is a battle we cannot escape; we cannot cheat our way out.

You boast that you have made a treaty with death and reached an agreement with the world of the dead. You are certain that disaster will spare you when it comes, because you depend on lies and deceit to keep you safe.

You do these things I hate, and then you come and stand in my presence, in my own Temple, and say, 'We are safe!'

But how can you stand these treacherous, evil men? Your eyes are too holy to look at evil, and you cannot stand the sight of people doing wrong. So why are you silent while they destroy people who are more righteous than they are?

Confuse the speech of my enemies, O Lord! I see violence and riots in the city,

May my enemies die before their time; may they go down alive into the world of the dead! Evil is in their homes and in their hearts.

But you, O God, will bring those murderers and liars to their graves before half their life is over. As for me, I will trust in you.

Turn your anger on the nations that do not worship you and on the people who reject you. They have killed your people; they have destroyed us completely and left our country in ruins.

So I prayed, " LORD, hear what I am saying and listen to what my enemies are saying about me.

But now, LORD, let their children starve to death; let them be killed in war. Let the women lose their husbands and children; let the men die of disease and the young men be killed in battle.

But, LORD, you know all their plots to kill me. Do not forgive their evil or pardon their sin. Throw them down in defeat and deal with them while you are angry."