If a ruler listens to ¹  lies, ²  all his ministers ³  will be wicked. ⁴ 

When the wicked increase, ¹  transgression increases, but the righteous will see ²  their downfall.

An unjust person is an abomination to the righteous, and the one who lives an upright life is an abomination to the wicked. ¹ 

Too bad for the wicked sinners! For they will get exactly what they deserve. ¹ 

They pronounce the guilty innocent for a payoff, they ignore the just cause of the innocent. ¹ 

I will give it to foreigners as loot, to the world’s wicked ones as plunder, and they will desecrate it.

¹ “You must not give ²  a false report. ³  Do not make common cause ⁴  with the wicked ⁵  to be a malicious ⁶  witness.

Keep your distance ¹  from a false charge ²  – do not kill the innocent and the righteous, ³  for I will not justify the wicked. ⁴ 

Moreover, you must not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death; he must surely be put to death.

Then, ¹  if the guilty person is sentenced to a beating, ²  the judge shall force him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of blows his wicked behavior deserves. ³ 

He watches over ¹  his holy ones, ²  but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness, for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.

“It is all one! ¹  That is why I say, ²  ‘He destroys the blameless and the guilty.’

If a land ¹  has been given into the hand of a wicked man, ²  he covers ³  the faces of its judges; ⁴  if it is not he, then who is it? ⁵ 

Is it good for you ¹  to oppress, ²  to ³  despise the work of your hands, while ⁴  you smile ⁵  on the schemes of the wicked?

But the eyes of the wicked fail, ¹  and escape ²  eludes them; their one hope ³  is to breathe their last.” ⁴ 

All his days ¹  the wicked man suffers torment, ²  throughout the number of the years that ³  are stored up for the tyrant. ⁴ 

“How often ¹  is the lamp of the wicked extinguished? How often does their ²  misfortune come upon them? How often does God apportion pain ³  to them ⁴  in his anger?

For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, ¹  and where are the tents in which the wicked lived?’ ² 

This is the portion of the wicked man allotted by God, ¹  the inheritance that evildoers receive from the Almighty.

Not so with the wicked! Instead ¹  they are like wind-driven chaff. ²