Job 18

Bildad Speaks: God Punishes the Wicked

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

²“How long will you hunt for words?

Consider, and then we will speak.

³Why are we counted as cattle?

Why are we stupid in your sight?

⁴You who tear yourself in your anger,

shall the earth be forsaken for you,

or the rock be removed out of its place?

⁵“Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out,

and the flame of his fire does not shine.

⁶The light is dark in his tent,

and his lamp above him is put out.

⁷His strong steps are shortened,

and his own schemes throw him down.

⁸For he is cast into a net by his own feet,

and he walks on its mesh.

⁹A trap seizes him by the heel;

a snare lays hold of him.

¹⁰A rope is hidden for him in the ground,

a trap for him in the path.

¹¹Terrors frighten him on every side,

and chase him at his heels.

¹²His strength is famished,

and calamity is ready for his stumbling.

¹³It consumes the parts of his skin;

the firstborn of death consumes his limbs.

¹⁴He is torn from the tent in which he trusted

and is brought to the king of terrors.

¹⁵In his tent dwells that which is none of his;

sulfur is scattered over his habitation.

¹⁶His roots dry up beneath,

and his branches wither above.

¹⁷His memory perishes from the earth,

and he has no name in the street.

¹⁸He is thrust from light into darkness,

and driven out of the world.

¹⁹He has no posterity or progeny among his people,

and no survivor where he used to live.

²⁰They of the west are appalled at his day,

and horror seizes them of the east.

²¹Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous,

such is the place of him who knows not God.”