“Drink it down to the dregs”
For a cup is in the hand of the LORD, full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours from His cup, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to the dregs. (Psalm 75:8 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A picture of God offering the wicked a strong drink.
The cultural key
The verse can sound almost festive, God with a spiced, foaming cup. In the prophets and psalms, though, 'the cup in the LORD's hand' is a fixed metaphor for the wine of His wrath: a cup He forces the guilty to drink until they stagger and fall (Isaiah 51:17; Jeremiah 25:15). The wine is potent and 'mixed,' and the wicked must 'drink it down to the dregs', that is, drain the sediment-thick bottom, the last and bitterest portion. To finish a cup to the dregs is to endure judgment completely, holding nothing back. This is the same imagery Jesus draws on when he prays that 'this cup' might pass from him (Mark 14:36); he takes the cup of wrath the wicked deserved. So the scene is not a banquet but a courtroom sentence poured out to the last drop.
Recovered meaning
The 'cup in the LORD's hand' is the cup of His wrath, and draining it 'to the dregs' means receiving judgment in full, down to the bitter sediment. The wicked are made to drink God's sentence completely.