² This is why my troubled thoughts make me respond again,
and why my thoughts are racing through my mind:
³ I heard a rebuke that insults me,
so my spirit prompts me to respond with understanding.

⁴ Don’t you know this?
From ancient times,
from the time when Adam ^[1] was placed on the earth,
⁵ the triumphant cry of the wicked has been short-lived,
and the joy of the godless lasts only a moment.
⁶ Although his arrogance reaches up to the skies,
and his head touches the clouds,
⁷ he will perish forever like his own filth.
Those who saw him will say, “Where is he?”
⁸ Like a dream, he flies away, and he cannot be found.
Like a vision during the night, he flutters away.
⁹ An eye catches sight of him, but it does not see him again.
His place will no longer look at him.
¹⁰ His children must make restitution to ^[2] the poor.
His hands must give back his wealth.
¹¹ His bones were once filled with youthful vigor,
but that vigor will lie down with him in the dust.
¹² If evil tastes sweet in his mouth,
and he tucks it under his tongue,
¹³ if he hoards it for himself,
and he does not let it go,
but savors it on his palate,
¹⁴ his food will turn into cobra venom in his stomach.
¹⁵ He swallowed wealth, but he vomits it up.
God makes him expel it from his belly.
¹⁶ He sucks the poison of cobras.
The fangs of a viper kill him.
¹⁷ He will not see the streams,
the rivers that flow with honey and cream.
¹⁸ Without digesting it, he gives up the produce for which he labored.
He does not enjoy the wealth for which he traded,
¹⁹ because he has crushed and abandoned the poor,
and he has stolen a house he did not build.
²⁰ His stomach is never filled.
He cannot satisfy his desires,
²¹ because now there is nothing left for him to eat,
so his prosperity will not endure.
²² Even when he has plenty,
distress catches up with him,
and misery grabs hold of him.
²³ While he is filling his belly,
God will send burning anger upon him,
and it will rain down on his body. ^[3]
24 He flees from iron weapons,
but he is pierced by a bronze arrow.
²⁵ He pulls the arrow out of his back,
and the shiny point comes out of his liver.
Terrors come over him.
²⁶ Complete darkness is lying in wait for his hidden treasures.
A fire that needs no fanning will consume him.
It will destroy anything that survives in his tent.
²⁷ The heavens will uncover his guilt,
and the earth will rise up against him.
²⁸ A flood will carry away his house,
sweeping away his possessions on the day of God’s wrath.
²⁹ This is God’s sentence on the evil man.
This is his heritage decreed by God.

² Listen carefully to my words—
that is the kind of encouragement you should give me.
³ Put up with me while I speak.
Then, after I have spoken, you may resume your mocking.

⁴ Is my complaint against a man?
Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
⁵ Look at me and be shocked, ^[4]
and then put your hand over your mouth.
⁶ When I remember all this, I am terrified, ^[5]
and horror makes my flesh tremble.
⁷ Why do the wicked keep living,
reach old age,
and even become stronger?
⁸ Their descendants are firmly established in their presence,
and they live long enough to see their offspring.
⁹ Their houses are safe from fear,
and God’s rod does not strike them.
¹⁰ The wicked man’s bulls breed without failing.
His cows deliver calves without miscarrying.
¹¹ Their toddlers frolic like flocks,
and their children dance around.
¹² They sing to the accompaniment of hand drums and lyres.
They celebrate to the sound of a flute.
¹³ They finish out ^[6] their days in prosperity.
Then they go down to the grave in a moment.
¹⁴ They say to God, “Keep away from us.
We know your ways, but we find no pleasure in them.”
¹⁵ “Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him,
and what benefit do we gain from pleading with him?”
¹⁶ But I know that their prosperity is not in their own hands,
so I have distanced myself from the way of life ^[7] of the wicked.

¹⁷ How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?
How often does the disaster they deserve come upon them?
How often does God in his anger dole out their fair share of pain?
¹⁸ How often are they like straw blown by the wind,
like chaff that a windstorm whisks away?

¹⁹ People say, “God stores up a man’s punishment for his children,”
but he should repay the man himself so that he experiences it!
²⁰ Let his own eyes see his condemnation. ^[8]
Let him drink from the rage of the Almighty,
²¹ for what does he care about his household after his death,
when his allotment of months has run out?

²² Can anyone teach God knowledge,
since he judges even the most exalted ones?

²³ One person dies with vigor in his bones,
completely secure and at ease.
²⁴ His body is filled out with fat, ^[9]
and his bones are rich with marrow.
²⁵ Another person dies with his soul filled with bitterness,
without ever tasting anything good.
²⁶ Both of them lie down together in the dust,
and worms cover them both.

²⁷ Oh, I know your thoughts
and your schemes to harm me.
²⁸ For you say, “Where is the nobleman’s house,
and where is the tent, which was the dwelling of the wicked?”

²⁹ Why don’t you question those who travel the roads?
Why don’t you acknowledge the lessons they learned? ^[10]
30 They say that the wicked man is spared from the day of disaster,
and that he escapes the day of raging fury.
³¹ Who denounces him to his face for the way he has lived?
Who repays him for what he has done?
³² When he is carried to the tombs,
when a vigil is kept at his burial mound,
³³ the clods of dirt from the streambed are sweet to him.
Everyone follows his funeral procession.
A crowd of people marches ahead of it. ^[11]

³⁴ So how can you comfort me with your useless words?
There is nothing left from your answers but fraud!