[1] Job, you upset me. Now I'm impatient to answer. [3] What you have said is an insult, but I know how to reply to you. [4] Surely you know that from ancient times, when we humans were first placed on earth, [5] no wicked people have been happy for long. [6] They may grow great, towering to the sky, so great that their heads reach the clouds, [7] but they will be blown away like dust. Those who used to know them will wonder where they have gone. [8] They will vanish like a dream, like a vision at night, and never be seen again. [9] The wicked will disappear from the place where they used to live; [10] and their children will make good what they stole from the poor. [11] Their bodies used to be young and vigorous, but soon they will turn to dust. [12] Evil tastes so good to them that they keep some in their mouths to enjoy its flavor. [14] But in their stomachs the food turns bitter, as bitter as any poison could be. [15] The wicked vomit up the wealth they stole; God takes it back, even out of their stomachs. [16] What the evil people swallow is like poison; it kills them like the bite of a deadly snake. [17] They will not live to see rivers of olive oil or streams that flow with milk and honey. [18] They will have to give up all they have worked for; they will have no chance to enjoy their wealth, [19] because they oppressed and neglected the poor and seized houses someone else had built. [20] Their greed is never satisfied. [21] When they eat, there is nothing left over, but now their prosperity comes to an end. [22] At the height of their success all the weight of misery will crush them. [23] Let them eat all they want! God will punish them in fury and anger. [24] When they try to escape from an iron sword, a bronze bow will shoot them down. [25] Arrows stick through their bodies; the shiny points drip with their blood, and terror grips their hearts. [26] Everything they have saved is destroyed; a fire not lit by human hands burns them and all their family. [27] Heaven reveals their sin, and the earth gives testimony against them. [28] All their wealth will be destroyed in the flood of God's anger. [29] This is the fate of wicked people, the fate that God assigns to them.
