They swarmed around me like bees— they were extinguished like burning thorns— in the Name of Adonai I cut them off.
But the worthless, all of them will be thrust aside like thorns, for they cannot be picked up by hand.
For the music director, a psalm of David.
May He grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.
Like a slug melting away as it slithers, like a woman’s miscarriage, may they never see the sun.
birds in the air, and fish in the ocean— all passing through the paths of the seas.
For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This too is vapor.
It is not that I have wrath. Who would give me thorns and thistles? Into battle I would march against them! I would burn them up altogether!
Then peoples will be burned as lime, like thorns cut down, burned in the fire.
For even like tangled thorns they will be consumed, or like drunkards who are drunk, or like stubble that is fully dry.
The Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you, and they chased you as bees do and scattered you from Seir to Hormah.
Then David said to the Philistine, “You are coming to me with a sword, a spear and a javelin, but I am coming to you in the Name of Adonai-Tzva’ot, God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.