Job 20

₂‘Job, listen to me. I am upset,

and I must say something.

₃You want to teach me

but your words show

that you don't respect me.

I know how to answer you.

₄You know how it was long ago,

from the time that God put people on earth.

₅People who do things that are wrong

will not be happy for a long time.

Someone who does not want to know God

will be happy only for a short while.

₆Maybe people like that

will become very important,

so they will become proud

and walk with their noses up high

₇but they will disappear

as quickly as their own dung.

People who have known them will ask:

“Where are they?”

₈They will go away like a dream

and you will not find them.

People will forget them,

like they forget what they saw

when they were dreaming.

₉No one will see them again,

and they will never go to where they lived before.

₁₀Their children will have

to give back the money and everything

that they have stolen from the poor people.

₁₁They will be strong and healthy

until they go to their graves.

₁₂They have enjoyed doing wrong,

and they love it like good food

₁₃that they put into their mouths

and swallow slowly.

₁₄But that sweet food

will change in their stomachs.

It will become as bitter

as the poison of a snake.

₁₅They have many things, and they are rich

but they will lose everything like food

that someone has eaten

and then vomited out.

God will make this happen to them.

₁₆They will have to drink

the poison of a snake,

and a viper's teeth will kill them.

₁₇They will not be able to enjoy anything,

not even if there are rivers

full of honey and cream.

₁₈They will not eat it.

They will have to give back

everything that they have worked for.

They will buy, sell and become rich,

but they will never enjoy it.

₁₉Because they have trampled poor people,

and they did not help them.

They took houses for themselves

that other people built.

₂₀They can never have enough,

and they always want to have more and more.

₂₁When they eat, there is nothing left over,

and that is why they will become poor.

₂₂While they have a lot of everything,

more than they need,

trouble will come suddenly

and they will start to suffer.

₂₃While they eat the food that they have taken,

God will become angry and punish them.

His punishment will fall on them like rain.

₂₄They will run away from

an enemy with an iron sword,

but then an enemy with

a bronze bow will shoot them.

₂₅They will pull the arrows

out of their backs and the sharp points

out of their livers and gallbladders

and then they will fear

because they know that they are going to die.

₂₆Darkness is waiting for them

and everything that they had.

A fire from God will burn and destroy them.

₂₇Heaven and earth

will witness against them.

₂₈When God gets angry

and He wants to punish someone,

that person will lose everything,

like a water flood that destroys homes.

₂₉That is what God does

to people who do wrong.’