Bildad Describes the Fate of the Wicked

181 Bildad from Shuhah chimed in: 2 "How monotonous these word games are getting! Get serious! We need to get down to business. 3 Why do you treat your friends like slow-witted animals? You look down on us as if we don't know anything. 4 Why are you working yourself up like this? Do you want the world redesigned to suit you? Should reality be suspended to accommodate you?

5 "Here's the rule: The light of the wicked is put out. Their flame dies down and is extinguished. 6 Their house goes dark - every lamp in the place goes out. 7 Their strong strides weaken, falter; they stumble into their own traps. 8 They get all tangled up in their own red tape, 9 Their feet are grabbed and caught, their necks in a noose. 10 They trip on ropes they've hidden, and fall into pits they've dug themselves.

11 Terrors come at them from all sides. They run helter-skelter. 12 The hungry grave is ready to gobble them up for supper, 13 To lay them out for a gourmet meal, a treat for ravenous Death. 14 They are snatched from their home sweet home and marched straight to the death house. 15 Their lives go up in smoke; acid rain soaks their ruins. 16 Their roots rot and their branches wither. 17 They'll never again be remembered - nameless in unmarked graves. 18 They are plunged from light into darkness, banished from the world. 19 And they leave empty-handed - not one single child - nothing to show for their life on this earth. 20 Westerners are aghast at their fate, easterners are horrified: 21 'Oh no! So this is what happens to perverse people. This is how the God-ignorant end up!'"

Job Bewails His Birth

31 Then Job broke the silence. He spoke up and cursed his fate: 2  3 "Obliterate the day I was born. Blank out the night I was conceived! 4 Let it be a black hole in space. May God above forget it ever happened. Erase it from the books! 5 May the day of my birth be buried in deep darkness, shrouded by the fog, swallowed by the night. 6 And the night of my conception - the devil take it! Rip the date off the calendar, delete it from the almanac. 7 Oh, turn that night into pure nothingness - no sounds of pleasure from that night, ever! 8 May those who are good at cursing curse that day. Unleash the sea beast, Leviathan, on it. 9 May its morning stars turn to black cinders, waiting for a daylight that never comes, never once seeing the first light of dawn. 10 And why? Because it released me from my mother's womb into a life with so much trouble.

11 "Why didn't I die at birth, my first breath out of the womb my last? 12 Why were there arms to rock me, and breasts for me to drink from? 13 I could be resting in peace right now, asleep forever, feeling no pain, 14 In the company of kings and statesmen in their royal ruins, 15 Or with princes resplendent in their gold and silver tombs. 16 Why wasn't I stillborn and buried with all the babies who never saw light, 17 Where the wicked no longer trouble anyone and bone-weary people get a long-deserved rest? 18 Prisoners sleep undisturbed, never again to wake up to the bark of the guards. 19 The small and the great are equals in that place, and slaves are free from their masters.

20 "Why does God bother giving light to the miserable, why bother keeping bitter people alive, 21 Those who want in the worst way to die, and can't, who can't imagine anything better than death, 22 Who count the day of their death and burial the happiest day of their life? 23 What's the point of life when it doesn't make sense, when God blocks all the roads to meaning? 24 "Instead of bread I get groans for my supper, then leave the table and vomit my anguish. 25 The worst of my fears has come true, what I've dreaded most has happened. 26 My repose is shattered, my peace destroyed. No rest for me, ever - death has invaded life."