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Job Continues

I Am Desperate

27 Job said:
I am desperate because
God All-Powerful refuses
    to do what is right.
As surely as God lives,
and while he gives me breath,
    I will tell only the truth.
Until the day I die,
I will refuse to do wrong
    by saying you are right,
because each day my conscience
    agrees that I am innocent.

I pray that my enemies
will suffer no less
    than the wicked.
Such people are hopeless,
and God All-Powerful
    will cut them down,
without listening
    when they beg for mercy.
10 And that is what God should do,
because they don't like him
    or ever pray.
11 Now I will explain in detail
    what God All-Powerful does.
12 All of you have seen these things
for yourselves.
    So you have no excuse.

How God Treats the Wicked

13 Here is how God All-Powerful
treats those who are wicked
    and brutal.
14 They may have many children,
but most of them will go hungry
    or suffer a violent death.
15 Others will die of disease,
and their widows
    won't be able to weep.
16 The wicked may collect riches
and clothes in abundance
    as easily as clay.
17 But God's people will wear
clothes taken from them
    and divide up their riches.
18 No homes built by the wicked
will outlast a cocoon
    or a shack.
19 Those sinners may go to bed rich,
    but they will wake up poor.[a]
20 Terror will strike at night
    like a flood or a storm.
21 Then a scorching wind
    will sweep them away
22 without showing mercy,
    as they try to escape.
23 At last, the wind will celebrate
    because they are gone.

Footnotes

  1. 27.19 poor: Or “dead.”

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