A Fool’s Hope: Psalm 58

I know the wicked man
Devises every plan
From deep within his heart
To from you then depart.
His steps and ways are dark,
Ne’er to correction hark,
Ne’er does he love the good
But sups on wicked food.
Yet such a man awaits
Eternally dark fate
Come from the hand of God,
By holy feet he’s trod.

But should my heart rejoice
When silence you their voice?
Should face break out in grin
When they are judged for sin?
I know oppression ends
When judgment you will send,
Then righteous men are free
To seek and follow thee.
But even so, my Lord,
Please will you stay your sword
And help the wicked men
To seek your heart again?

For in the glass I spy
A dark and vile eye
That seeks not beauty’s face
But ways to thwart your grace.
From bent desire’s root
Comes putrid rotten fruit.
Yet out from eye’s dark pools
Trickles the tears of fools,
A fool who knows his life
Is filled with evil strife
And wants so much to change,
Like me—is that so strange?

Lord, each of your dark foes
Like me they once did grow
From innocent, sweet boys
Who climbed and played with toys.
They searched and then explored,
Found ways that you deplored,
And from that fruit did taste
A juice of inner waste.
But is it deadly sure
That you cannot still cure
Their deadly dark disease
And bring them to their knees?

For nothing more than hope,
Please stay the hangman’s rope.
Hope that a future day
Will see them find their way
Back to a child’s state
When on you they will wait
And to your arms they’ll run
And called by you a son,
Then bitter fool’s tears turn
From regret’s stinging burn
Into a joyful flow
In steadfast love’s sweet glow.