Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 140:3

Slander and calumny must always precede and accompany persecution, because malice itself cannot excite people against a good man, as such; to do this, he must first be represented as a bad man. What can be said of those who are busied in this manner, but that they are a "generation of vipers", the brood of the old "Serpent", that grand accuser and calumniator of the brethren, having under their tongues a bag of "poison", conveying instant death to the reputation on which they fasten. Thus David was hunted as a rebel, Christ was crucified as a blasphemer, and the primitive Christians were tortured as guilty of incest and murder. —George Horne.