² “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge,
    and fill his belly with the east wind?
³ Should he argue in unprofitable talk,
    or in words with which he can do no good?
⁴ But you are doing away with the fear of God^[a]
    and hindering meditation before God.
⁵ For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
    and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
⁶ Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
    your own lips testify against you.

⁷ “Are you the first man who was born?
    Or were you brought forth before the hills?
⁸ Have you listened in the council of God?
    And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
⁹ What do you know that we do not know?
    What do you understand that is not clear to us?
¹⁰ Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
    older than your father.
¹¹ Are the comforts of God too small for you,
    or the word that deals gently with you?
¹² Why does your heart carry you away,
    and why do your eyes flash,
¹³ that you turn your spirit against God
    and bring such words out of your mouth?
¹⁴ What is man, that he can be pure?
    Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?
¹⁵ Behold, God^[b] puts no trust in his holy ones,
    and the heavens are not pure in his sight;
¹⁶ how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
    a man who drinks injustice like water!

¹⁷ “I will show you; hear me,
    and what I have seen I will declare
¹⁸ (what wise men have told,
    without hiding it from their fathers,
¹⁹ to whom alone the land was given,
    and no stranger passed among them).
²⁰ The wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
    through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
²¹ Dreadful sounds are in his ears;
    in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.
²² He does not believe that he will return out of darkness,
    and he is marked for the sword.
²³ He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
    He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;
²⁴ distress and anguish terrify him;
    they prevail against him, like a king ready for battle.
²⁵ Because he has stretched out his hand against God
    and defies the Almighty,
²⁶ running stubbornly against him
    with a thickly bossed shield;
²⁷ because he has covered his face with his fat
    and gathered fat upon his waist
²⁸ and has lived in desolate cities,
    in houses that none should inhabit,
    which were ready to become heaps of ruins;
²⁹ he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure,
    nor will his possessions spread over the earth;^[c]
30 he will not depart from darkness;
    the flame will dry up his shoots,
    and by the breath of his mouth he will depart.
³¹ Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself,
    for emptiness will be his payment.
³² It will be paid in full before his time,
    and his branch will not be green.
³³ He will shake off his unripe grape like the vine,
    and cast off his blossom like the olive tree.
³⁴ For the company of the godless is barren,
    and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
³⁵ They conceive trouble and give birth to evil,
    and their womb prepares deceit.”

² “I have heard many such things;
    miserable comforters are you all.
³ Shall windy words have an end?
    Or what provokes you that you answer?
⁴ I also could speak as you do,
    if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
    and shake my head at you.
⁵ I could strengthen you with my mouth,
    and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

⁶ “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
    and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
⁷ Surely now God has worn me out;
    he has^[d] made desolate all my company.
⁸ And he has shriveled me up,
    which is a witness against me,
and my leanness has risen up against me;
    it testifies to my face.
⁹ He has torn me in his wrath and hated me;
    he has gnashed his teeth at me;
    my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
¹⁰ Men have gaped at me with their mouth;
    they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
    they mass themselves together against me.
¹¹ God gives me up to the ungodly
    and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
¹² I was at ease, and he broke me apart;
    he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target;
¹³     his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare;
    he pours out my gall on the ground.
¹⁴ He breaks me with breach upon breach;
    he runs upon me like a warrior.
¹⁵ I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin
    and have laid my strength in the dust.
¹⁶ My face is red with weeping,
    and on my eyelids is deep darkness,
¹⁷ although there is no violence in my hands,
    and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸ “O earth, cover not my blood,
    and let my cry find no resting place.
¹⁹ Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
    and he who testifies for me is on high.
²⁰ My friends scorn me;
    my eye pours out tears to God,
²¹ that he would argue the case of a man with God,
    as^[e] a son of man does with his neighbor.
²² For when a few years have come
    I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

³ “Lay down a pledge for me with you;
    who is there who will put up security for me?
⁴ Since you have closed their hearts to understanding,
    therefore you will not let them triumph.
⁵ He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property—
    the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶ “He has made me a byword of the peoples,
    and I am one before whom men spit.
⁷ My eye has grown dim from vexation,
    and all my members are like a shadow.
⁸ The upright are appalled at this,
    and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless.
⁹ Yet the righteous holds to his way,
    and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger.
¹⁰ But you, come on again, all of you,
    and I shall not find a wise man among you.
¹¹ My days are past; my plans are broken off,
    the desires of my heart.
¹² They make night into day:
    ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’^[f]
13 If I hope for Sheol as my house,
    if I make my bed in darkness,
¹⁴ if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
    and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
¹⁵ where then is my hope?
    Who will see my hope?
¹⁶ Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
    Shall we descend together into the dust?”^[g]

² “How long will you hunt for words?
    Consider, and then we will speak.
³ Why are we counted as cattle?
    Why are we stupid in your sight?
⁴ You 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.
⁶ The light is dark in his tent,
    and his lamp above him is put out.
⁷ His strong steps are shortened,
    and his own schemes throw him down.
⁸ For he is cast into a net by his own feet,
    and he walks on its mesh.
⁹ A trap seizes him by the heel;
    a snare lays hold of him.
¹⁰ A rope is hidden for him in the ground,
    a trap for him in the path.
¹¹ Terrors frighten him on every side,
    and chase him at his heels.
¹² His strength is famished,
    and calamity is ready for his stumbling.
¹³ It consumes the parts of his skin;
    the firstborn of death consumes his limbs.
¹⁴ He is torn from the tent in which he trusted
    and is brought to the king of terrors.
¹⁵ In his tent dwells that which is none of his;
    sulfur is scattered over his habitation.
¹⁶ His roots dry up beneath,
    and his branches wither above.
¹⁷ His memory perishes from the earth,
    and he has no name in the street.
¹⁸ He is thrust from light into darkness,
    and driven out of the world.
¹⁹ He has no posterity or progeny among his people,
    and no survivor where he used to live.
²⁰ They of the west are appalled at his day,
    and horror seizes them of the east.
²¹ Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous,
    such is the place of him who knows not God.”

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
⁵⁵ “O death, where is your victory?
    O death, where is your sting?”