Job replied one more time
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1 Job replied again to his three friends, by saying this:2 “Almighty God has refused to treat me fairly.
He has caused me to feel resentful.
But just as surely as he lives,
3 as long as God's Spirit enables me to breathe,
4 I will not lie;
I will not say anything to deceive anyone.
5 I will never admit that what you three have said is true;
until the day that I die, I will insist that I have not done things that are wrong.
6 I will say that I am innocent, and never change what I say;
my inner being will never reproach me as long as I live.
7 I want my enemies to be punished like all the wicked people are punished;
I hope that God will punish those who oppose me like he punishes all unrighteous people.
8 When it is time for God to get rid of godless people and to cause them to die,
there is absolutely nothing good that they can confidently expect to happen to them.
9 When they experience troubles, will God hear them call out to him for help ?
10 Will they be happy about what Almighty God does?
Will they begin to pray to him frequently?
Certainly not!
11 I will teach you three something about the power of Almighty God;
I will reveal what he is thinking.
12 But you three have seen for yourselves what God has done;
so why are you saying such nonsense?
13 I will tell you what Almighty God does to wicked people,
the things that people who oppress others receive from him.
14 Even if they have many children, many of those children will die in wars,
and their other children will die because they do not have enough food to eat.
15 Their children who are still alive will die from diseases,
and their widows will not even mourn for them.
16 Sometimes wicked people accumulate a huge amount of silver
and pile up clothes like those clothes were a pile of clay,
17 but those wicked people will die, and then righteous people will wear those clothes,
and innocent people will get their silver and divide it among themselves.
18 The houses that the wicked build are as fragile as spider webs,
or they are like flimsy huts that watchmen live in while they guard people's fields.
19 The wicked people are rich when they lie down at night,
but when they wake up in the morning, they find out that their money has disappeared.
20 Things that terrify them strike them like a flood;
during the night a whirlwind carries them away.
21 It is as though the wind from the east picks them up and carries them away from their homes,
and they disappear.
22 That wind strikes them without pitying them
while they are running away, trying to escape from its force.
23 That wind is like someone clapping his hands at them to ridicule them,
howling at them wherever they run to.”