Thus Speaks the Lord to Wicked Men

Thus speaks the Lord to wicked men:
My statutes why do you declare?
Why take My covenant in your mouth,
Since ye for wisdom do not care?
For ye My holy words profane
And cast them from you in disdain.

Ye have consented with the thief,
Ye have partaken with the vile,
Your mouths to evil words ye give,
Your tongues proclaim deceit and guile,
Ye glory in your brother’s shame,
Your mother’s son do you defame.

Thus have ye done; I silence kept,
And this has been your secret thought,
That I was wholly as yourselves,
To take your evil deeds as naught;
I will reprove you and array
Your deeds before your eyes this day.

Consider this, who God forget
Lest I destroy with none to free;
Who offers sacrifice of thanks,
He glorifies and honors Me;
To him who orders well his way
Salvation free I will display.

Author: Unknown

Year: 1650

This is a metrical rendering of Psalm 50:16-21 from the 1650 Scottish Psalter (also known as the Scottish Metrical Version). The versification is traditionally regarded as the work of the Westminster Assembly revisers or Francis Rous, though no single individual's name is definitively attached to this specific psalm text.