Psalms 58:9

Before the kindling is even placed under your pots, ¹  he ²  will sweep it away along with both the raw and cooked meat. ³ 

Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns—whether they be green or dry—the wicked will be swept away.

Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.

God will sweep them away, both young and old, faster than a pot heats on an open flame.

Before what they cook up is half-done, God, throw it out with the garbage!

Before they are conscious of it, let them be cut down like thorns; let a strong wind take them away like waste growth.

Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!

Before your pots can feel the burning thorns, He shall take them away as with a whirlwind, As in His living and burning wrath.

Before the kindling is even placed under your pots, ¹  he ²  will sweep it away along with both the raw and cooked meat. ³ 

¹ tn Heb “before your pots perceive thorns.”

² tn Apparently God (v. 6) is the subject of the verb here.

³ tn Heb “like living, like burning anger he will sweep it away.” The meaning of the text is unclear. The translation assumes that within the cooking metaphor (see the previous line) חַי (khay, “living”) refers here to raw meat (as in 1 Sam 2:15, where it modifies בָּשָׂר, basar, “flesh”) and that חָרוּן (kharun; which always refers to God’s “burning anger” elsewhere) here refers to food that is cooked. The pronominal suffix on the verb “sweep away” apparently refers back to the “thorns” of the preceding line. The image depicts swift and sudden judgment. Before the fire has been adequately kindled and all the meat cooked, the winds of judgment will sweep away everything in their path.