1O LORD God, vengeance belongs to you. O God, vengeance belongs to you: show yourself.
2Rise up, you judge of the earth. Pay the proud what they deserve.
3LORD, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked celebrate?
4How long will they pour out their hard words and speak them? All who do evil boast about themselves.
5They break your people in pieces, O LORD, and they crush the people who belong to you.
6They kill the widow and the stranger, and they murder the fatherless.
7Yet they say, "The LORD will not see it. The God of Jacob will pay it no attention."
8Understand this, you senseless ones among the people. You fools, when will you be wise?
9He who planted the ear, will he not hear? He who formed the eye, will he not see?
10He who disciplines the nations, will he not correct you? He who teaches people knowledge, will he not know?
11The LORD knows the thoughts of man; he knows they are empty.
12Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O LORD, and whom you teach out of your law.
13You give him rest from the days of trouble, until the pit is dug for the wicked.
14For the LORD will not throw off his people. He will not abandon those who belong to him.
15But judgment will come back to righteousness, and all who are upright in heart will follow it.
16Who will rise up for me against those who do evil? Who will stand up for me against the workers of wrong?
17If the LORD had not been my help, my soul would almost have gone to live in silence.
18When I said, "My foot is slipping," your mercy, O LORD, held me up.
19When my thoughts crowd inside me, your comforts delight my soul.
20Can the throne of evil be your friend, a throne that shapes trouble by law?
21They gather together against the soul of the righteous, and they condemn innocent blood.
22But the LORD is my defence, and my God is the rock where I take refuge.
23He will bring their own evil back on them, and cut them off in their own wickedness. Yes, the LORD our God will cut them off.