To the Overseer. -- `On a disease.' -- An instruction, by David. A fool said in his heart, `There is no God.' They have done corruptly, Yea, they have done abominable iniquity, There is none doing good.
For a fool speaketh folly, And his heart doth iniquity, to do profanity, And to speak concerning Jehovah error, To empty the soul of the hungry, Yea, drink of the thirsty he causeth to lack.
And removed backward is judgment, And righteousness afar off standeth, For truth hath been feeble in the street, And straightforwardness is not able to enter,
There is none calling in righteousness, And there is none pleading in faithfulness, Trusting on emptiness, and speaking falsehood, Conceiving perverseness, and bearing iniquity.
Therefore, over its young men the Lord rejoiceth not, And its orphans, and its widows He pitieth not, For every one `is' profane, and an evil doer, And every mouth is speaking folly. With all this not turned back hath His anger, And still His hand is stretched out.
The good man out of the good treasure of the heart doth put forth the good things, and the evil man out of the evil treasure doth put forth evil things.
And having seen many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming about his baptism, he said to them, `Brood of vipers! who did shew you to flee from the coming wrath?
`The good man out of the good treasure of his heart doth bring forth that which `is' good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart doth bring forth that which `is' evil; for out of the abounding of the heart doth his mouth speak.
`Ye are of a father -- the devil, and the desires of your father ye will to do; he was a man-slayer from the beginning, and in the truth he hath not stood, because there is no truth in him; when one may speak the falsehood, of his own he speaketh, because he is a liar -- also his father.
In this manifest are the children of God, and the children of the devil; every one who is not doing righteousness, is not of God, and he who is not loving his brother,