Job 20

²“Pay attention! My thoughts urge me to answer,

because of the agitation within me.

³I hear censure that insults me,

and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.

⁴Do you not know this from of old,

ever since mortals were placed on earth,

⁵that the exulting of the wicked is short,

and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?

⁶Even though they mount up high as the heavens,

and their head reaches to the clouds,

⁷they will perish forever like their own dung;

those who have seen them will say, ‘Where are they?’

⁸They will fly away like a dream, and not be found;

they will be chased away like a vision of the night.

⁹The eye that saw them will see them no more,

nor will their place behold them any longer.

¹⁰Their children will seek the favor of the poor,

and their hands will give back their wealth.

¹¹Their bodies, once full of youth,

will lie down in the dust with them.

¹²“Though wickedness is sweet in their mouth,

though they hide it under their tongues,

¹³though they are loath to let it go,

and hold it in their mouths,

¹⁴yet their food is turned in their stomachs;

it is the venom of asps within them.

¹⁵They swallow down riches and vomit them up again;

God casts them out of their bellies.

¹⁶They will suck the poison of asps;

the tongue of a viper will kill them.

¹⁷They will not look on the rivers,

the streams flowing with honey and curds.

¹⁸They will give back the fruit of their toil,

and will not swallow it down;

from the profit of their trading

they will get no enjoyment.

¹⁹For they have crushed and abandoned the poor,

they have seized a house that they did not build.

²⁰“They knew no quiet in their bellies;

in their greed they let nothing escape.

²¹There was nothing left after they had eaten;

therefore their prosperity will not endure.

²²In full sufficiency they will be in distress;

all the force of misery will come upon them.

²³To fill their belly to the full

God will send his fierce anger into them,

and rain it upon them as their food.

²⁴They will flee from an iron weapon;

a bronze arrow will strike them through.

²⁵It is drawn forth and comes out of their body,

and the glittering point comes out of their gall;

terrors come upon them.

²⁶Utter darkness is laid up for their treasures;

a fire fanned by no one will devour them;

what is left in their tent will be consumed.

²⁷The heavens will reveal their iniquity,

and the earth will rise up against them.

²⁸The possessions of their house will be carried away,

dragged off in the day of God’s wrath.

²⁹This is the portion of the wicked from God,

the heritage decreed for them by God.”