² “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge,
    and fill his belly with the east wind?
³ Should he argue in unprofitable talk,
    or in words with which he can do no good?
⁴ But you are doing away with the fear of God^[a]
    and hindering meditation before God.
⁵ For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
    and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
⁶ Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
    your own lips testify against you.

⁷ “Are you the first man who was born?
    Or were you brought forth before the hills?
⁸ Have you listened in the council of God?
    And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
⁹ What do you know that we do not know?
    What do you understand that is not clear to us?
¹⁰ Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
    older than your father.
¹¹ Are the comforts of God too small for you,
    or the word that deals gently with you?
¹² Why does your heart carry you away,
    and why do your eyes flash,
¹³ that you turn your spirit against God
    and bring such words out of your mouth?
¹⁴ What is man, that he can be pure?
    Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?
¹⁵ Behold, God^[b] puts no trust in his holy ones,
    and the heavens are not pure in his sight;
¹⁶ how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
    a man who drinks injustice like water!

¹⁷ “I will show you; hear me,
    and what I have seen I will declare
¹⁸ (what wise men have told,
    without hiding it from their fathers,
¹⁹ to whom alone the land was given,
    and no stranger passed among them).
²⁰ The wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
    through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
²¹ Dreadful sounds are in his ears;
    in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.
²² He does not believe that he will return out of darkness,
    and he is marked for the sword.
²³ He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
    He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;
²⁴ distress and anguish terrify him;
    they prevail against him, like a king ready for battle.
²⁵ Because he has stretched out his hand against God
    and defies the Almighty,
²⁶ running stubbornly against him
    with a thickly bossed shield;
²⁷ because he has covered his face with his fat
    and gathered fat upon his waist
²⁸ and has lived in desolate cities,
    in houses that none should inhabit,
    which were ready to become heaps of ruins;
²⁹ he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure,
    nor will his possessions spread over the earth;^[c]
30 he will not depart from darkness;
    the flame will dry up his shoots,
    and by the breath of his mouth he will depart.
³¹ Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself,
    for emptiness will be his payment.
³² It will be paid in full before his time,
    and his branch will not be green.
³³ He will shake off his unripe grape like the vine,
    and cast off his blossom like the olive tree.
³⁴ For the company of the godless is barren,
    and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
³⁵ They conceive trouble and give birth to evil,
    and their womb prepares deceit.”

² “I have heard many such things;
    miserable comforters are you all.
³ Shall windy words have an end?
    Or what provokes you that you answer?
⁴ I also could speak as you do,
    if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
    and shake my head at you.
⁵ I could strengthen you with my mouth,
    and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

⁶ “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
    and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
⁷ Surely now God has worn me out;
    he has^[d] made desolate all my company.
⁸ And he has shriveled me up,
    which is a witness against me,
and my leanness has risen up against me;
    it testifies to my face.
⁹ He has torn me in his wrath and hated me;
    he has gnashed his teeth at me;
    my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
¹⁰ Men have gaped at me with their mouth;
    they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
    they mass themselves together against me.
¹¹ God gives me up to the ungodly
    and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
¹² I was at ease, and he broke me apart;
    he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target;
¹³     his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare;
    he pours out my gall on the ground.
¹⁴ He breaks me with breach upon breach;
    he runs upon me like a warrior.
¹⁵ I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin
    and have laid my strength in the dust.
¹⁶ My face is red with weeping,
    and on my eyelids is deep darkness,
¹⁷ although there is no violence in my hands,
    and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸ “O earth, cover not my blood,
    and let my cry find no resting place.
¹⁹ Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
    and he who testifies for me is on high.
²⁰ My friends scorn me;
    my eye pours out tears to God,
²¹ that he would argue the case of a man with God,
    as^[e] a son of man does with his neighbor.
²² For when a few years have come
    I shall go the way from which I shall not return.