Rescue me from my enemies, my God, and free me from those who rise up against me.
I have been thrown upon you from the womb; from the womb of my mother, you are my God.
A Canticle Psalm of Asaph.
I saw under the sun: instead of judgment, impiety, and instead of justice, iniquity.
Woe to those who make unfair laws, and who, when writing, write injustice:
The path of the just is upright; the difficult path of the just is right to walk in.
They have accepted bribes among you to shed blood. You have received usury and superabundance, and in avarice you have oppressed your neighbors. And you have forgotten me, says the Lord God.
Her leaders in her midst are like wolves seizing the prey: to shed blood, and to perish souls, and to continually pursue profit with avarice.
Therefore, we now call the arrogant blessed, as if those who work impiety have been built up, and as if they have tempted God and been saved."