Job 27

₂‘God has not been fair to me.

The Most High God has made me suffer,

and He has made my life difficult and bitter.

But as sure as God lives,

_3-4I will not say anything wrong.

I will not tell any lies, for as long as I live,

for as long as God keeps me alive.

₅Bildad, I will never say that

you are right. I will keep on saying

that I am innocent, for as long as I live.

₆I will keep on saying that I have lived in the right way,

and I will not say anything else.

I will not feel sorry about anything

that I have done in my life.’

₇‘I pray that my enemies will suffer

like people who do things that are wrong.

I hope that the people who are against me

will have problems like the people

who do bad things.

₈Because people who don't want to serve God

don't have any hope when God

cuts them off and causes them to die.

₉God will not listen when they have trouble

and cry to Him and ask Him for help.

₁₀They don't enjoy

serving the Almighty God

and they never pray to Him.’

₁₁‘I want to teach you what God can do.

I will not hide what He has planned and decided.

₁₂You know it and you have seen it,

so, why do you keep on speaking like fools?’

₁₃‘I will tell you what God

has decided to do to sinners,

and what will happen to people who do wrong.

This is what the Almighty God

will do to the people who are cruel.

₁₄Maybe they will have many children,

but the children will never have

enough food to eat and they will die in war.

₁₅If they have other children who are alive,

then they will die from disease and

their widows will not mourn them.

₁₆If people who live in the wrong way

get a lot of silver, as much as all the grains of sand,

and a lot of clothes, like heaps of clay,

₁₇they will not keep them.

The people who live in the right way

will wear those clothes.

People who have not done wrong

will get that silver and divide it among them.

₁₈The houses of people

who do wrong will not protect them.

They are like a home of a moth,

or like the shelter of a guard.

₁₉They are rich people when they go to sleep,

but when they open their eyes

in the morning, everything is gone.

₂₀They start becoming afraid.

Fear suddenly comes over them

like a water flood,

like when a storm wind

blows someone away at night.

₂₁The eastern wind blows them

out of their homes and they are gone.

₂₂The wind does not

feel sorry for them. They try to flee,

but the wind blows them away.

₂₃The wind is happy

about what happens to them.

It whistles and blows them out of their homes.’