^19-25 God saw it and spun around,
    angered and hurt by his sons and daughters.
He said, “From now on I’m looking the other way.
    Wait and see what happens to them.
Oh, they’re a turned-around, upside-down generation!
    Who knows what they’ll do from one moment to the next?
They’ve goaded me with their no-gods,
    infuriated me with their hot-air gods;
I’m going to goad them with a no-people,
    with a hollow nation incense them.
My anger started a fire,
    a wildfire burning deep down in Sheol,
Then shooting up and devouring the Earth and its crops,
    setting all the mountains, from bottom to top, on fire.
I’ll pile catastrophes on them,
    I’ll shoot my arrows at them:
Starvation, blistering heat, killing disease;
    I’ll send snarling wild animals to attack from the forest
    and venomous creatures to strike from the dust.
Killing in the streets,
    terror in the houses,
Young men and virgins alike struck down,
    and yes, breast-feeding babies and gray-haired old men.”

^6-14 “When I speak up, I feel no better;
    if I say nothing, that doesn’t help either.
I feel worn down.
    God, you have wasted me totally—me and my family!
You’ve shriveled me like a dried prune,
    showing the world that you’re against me.
My gaunt face stares back at me from the mirror,
    a mute witness to your treatment of me.
Your anger tears at me,
    your teeth rip me to shreds,
    your eyes burn holes in me—God, my enemy!
People take one look at me and gasp.
    Contemptuous, they slap me around
    and gang up against me.
And God just stands there and lets them do it,
    lets wicked people do what they want with me.
I was contentedly minding my business when God beat me up.
    He grabbed me by the neck and threw me around.
He set me up as his target,
    then rounded up archers to shoot at me.
Merciless, they shot me full of arrows;
    bitter bile poured from my gut to the ground.
He burst in on me, onslaught after onslaught,
    charging me like a mad bull.

^9-11 Close the book on Evil, God,
    but publish your mandate for us.
You get us ready for life:
    you probe for our soft spots,
    you knock off our rough edges.
And I’m feeling so fit, so safe:
    made right, kept right.
God in solemn honor does things right,
    but his nerves are sandpapered raw.

^11-13 Nobody gets by with anything.
    God is already in action—
Sword honed on his whetstone,
    bow strung, arrow on the string,
Lethal weapons in hand,
    each arrow a flaming missile.

^10-12 He’s a prowling bear tracking me down,
    a lion in hiding ready to pounce.
He knocked me from the path and ripped me to pieces.
    When he finished, there was nothing left of me.
He took out his bow and arrows
    and used me for target practice.

^13-15 He shot me in the stomach
    with arrows from his quiver.
Everyone took me for a joke,
    made me the butt of their mocking ballads.
He forced rotten, stinking food down my throat,
    bloated me with vile drinks.