Zophar Depicts the Portion of the Wicked

201 Zophar from Naamath again took his turn: 2 "I can't believe what I'm hearing! You've put my teeth on edge, my stomach in a knot. 3 How dare you insult my intelligence like this! Well, here's a piece of my mind! 4 "Don't you even know the basics, how things have been since the earliest days, when Adam and Eve were first placed on earth? 5 The good times of the wicked are short-lived; godless joy is only momentary. 6 The evil might become world famous, strutting at the head of the celebrity parade, 7 But still end up in a pile of dung. Acquaintances look at them with disgust and say, 'What's that?' 8 They fly off like a dream that can't be remembered, like a shadowy illusion that vanishes in the light. 9 Though once notorious public figures, now they're nobodies, unnoticed, whether they come or go.

10 Their children will go begging on skid row, and they'll have to give back their ill-gotten gain. 11 Right in the prime of life, and youthful and vigorous, they'll die. 12 "They savor evil as a delicacy, roll it around on their tongues, 13 Prolong the flavor, a dalliance in decadence - real gourmets of evil! 14 But then they get stomach cramps, a bad case of food poisoning. 15 They gag on all that rich food; God makes them vomit it up. 16 They gorge on evil, make a diet of that poison - a deadly diet - and it kills them. 17 No quiet picnics for them beside gentle streams with fresh-baked bread and cheese, and tall, cool drinks. 18 They spit out their food half-chewed, unable to relax and enjoy anything they've worked for. 19 And why? Because they exploited the poor, took what never belonged to them. 20 "Such God-denying people are never content with what they have or who they are; their greed drives them relentlessly. 21 They plunder everything but they can't hold on to any of it. 22 Just when they think they have it all, disaster strikes; they're served up a plate full of misery.

23 When they've filled their bellies with that, God gives them a taste of his anger, and they get to chew on that for a while. 24 As they run for their lives from one disaster, they run smack into another. 25 They're knocked around from pillar to post, beaten to within an inch of their lives. They're trapped in a house of horrors, 26 and see their loot disappear down a black hole. Their lives are a total loss - not a penny to their name, not so much as a bean. 27 God will strip them of their sin-soaked clothes and hang their dirty laundry out for all to see. 28 Life is a complete wipeout for them, nothing surviving God's wrath. 29 There! That's God's blueprint for the wicked - what they have to look forward to."

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."