For the music director; according to the machalath style; ²  a well-written song ³  by David. Fools say to themselves, ⁴  “There is no God.” ⁵  They sin and commit evil deeds; ⁶  none of them does what is right. ⁷ 

Don’t be so happy, all you Philistines, just because the club that beat you has been broken! ¹  For a viper will grow out of the serpent’s root, and its fruit will be a darting adder. ² 

So then I, the Lord who rules over all, ¹  have something to say concerning the prophets of Jerusalem: ²  ‘I will make these prophets eat the bitter food of suffering and drink the poison water of judgment. ³  For the prophets of Jerusalem are the reason ⁴  that ungodliness ⁵  has spread throughout the land.’”

As for the heads of those who surround me – may the harm done by ¹  their lips overwhelm them!

Death and life are in the power ¹  of the tongue, ²  and those who love its use ³  will eat its fruit.

Like cutting off the feet or drinking violence, ¹  so is sending ²  a message by the hand of a fool. ³ 

The people say, ¹  “Why are we just sitting here? Let us gather together inside the fortified cities. ²  Let us at least die there fighting, ³  since the Lord our God has condemned us to die. He has condemned us to drink the poison waters of judgment ⁴  because we have sinned against him. ⁵ 

So the Lord sent poisonous ¹  snakes ²  among the people, and they bit the people; many people of Israel died.

A baby ¹  will play over the hole of a snake; ²  over the nest ³  of a serpent an infant ⁴  will put his hand. ⁵ 

They hatch the eggs of a poisonous snake and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, a poisonous snake is hatched. ¹ 

The Lord says, ¹  “Yes indeed, ²  I am sending an enemy against you that will be like poisonous snakes which cannot be charmed away. ³  And they will inflict fatal wounds on you.” ⁴ 

They ¹  utter empty words, ²  taking ³  false oaths and making empty ⁴  agreements. Therefore legal disputes sprout up like poisonous weeds ⁵  in the furrows of a plowed field.

“I am about to make Jerusalem ¹  a cup that brings dizziness ²  to all the surrounding nations; indeed, Judah will also be included when Jerusalem is besieged.

Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit. ¹ 

and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents ¹  and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow ²  from a flint rock and

He went out to the spring and threw the salt in. Then he said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘I have purified ¹  this water. It will no longer cause death or fail to produce crops.” ² 

The stew was poured out ¹  for the men to eat. When they ate some of the stew, they cried out, “Death is in the pot, O prophet!” They could not eat it.

For ¹  they do not speak the truth; ²  their stomachs are like the place of destruction, ³  their throats like an open grave, ⁴  their tongues like a steep slope leading into it. ⁵ 

Their tongues are like deadly arrows. ¹  They are always telling lies. ²  Friendly words for their neighbors come from their mouths. But their minds are thinking up ways to trap them. ³ 

See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no one be like a bitter root springing up ¹  and causing trouble, and through him many become defiled.