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12 Do not put them to death,
    lest my people forget.[a]
Scatter them in your power
    and bring them to their knees,
    Lord, our shield.[b]
13 For the sins of their mouths
    and the words of their lips,
    let them be trapped in their pride.
For the curses and lies they speak,
14     put an end to them in your wrath;
    put an end to them until they are no more.
Then it will be known to the ends of the earth
    that God is the ruler over Jacob.[c] Selah

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Footnotes

  1. Psalm 59:12 Another translation possible is: “O God, put them to death, / so that they may not seduce my people.”
  2. Psalm 59:12 O Lord, our shield: just as the king was regarded as the people’s shield in ancient Israel (see Ps 84:10), so the Lord was called the Shield of his people (see Pss 7:11; 84:12; 89:19; 91:4; 115:9-11; Deut 33:29; Prov 30:5). Accordingly, the psalmist invokes this attribute of the Lord at this point.
  3. Psalm 59:14 God’s punishment of the nations will show that God, the King of Israel (see Ps 24:1, 6; Isa 41:21ff; 63:19), is also the Master of the universe (see Pss 46:11f; 83:19).