² ‘If you were wise,
    you would not answer us with such silly ideas.
The words that come out from inside you are only a hot wind!
³ No wise man would argue in such a useless way.
    The things that you say do not mean anything.
⁴ You show that you do not respect God.
    You turn other people away from him.
⁵ It is your sin that causes you to speak like that.
    You try to say clever things that will deceive people.
⁶ I do not need to show that you are guilty.
    Your own words show that you are wrong.
⁷ You were not the first human to be born.
    You were not alive when God made the hills.
⁸ You do not know God's secret plans.
    You are not the only wise person in the world.
⁹ You do not know any more than we know.
    We understand as much as you do.
¹⁰ The old men agree with us.
    They are older and wiser even than your father.
¹¹ You think that God's kind words are not important.
    But they should be enough for you.
¹² You have allowed your thoughts to confuse you.
    We can see in your eyes that you are very angry.
¹³ Why are you so angry against God?
    You should not say such wicked things.
¹⁴ No one who is human can be truly pure and righteous.
¹⁵ God does not even trust his own angels.
    He knows that they make mistakes.
¹⁶ So he certainly will not trust people.
    People are wicked and cannot think true thoughts.
They like to do evil things,
    as if they are drinking water!

¹⁷ So listen to me. I will explain something to you.
    I will tell you what I have seen.
¹⁸ These are things that wise men have taught me.
    They did not hide the truth.
They learned these things from their ancestors.
¹⁹ They were the people who received the land.
    No foreigners were there to deceive them.
²⁰ They knew this:
    A wicked person will have trouble all his life.
    Anyone who is cruel will suffer every year that he lives.
²¹ He will hear things that frighten him.
He may think that he is safe,
    but robbers will attack him.
²² He is afraid to go out in the dark.
    He thinks that someone may kill him.
²³ The wicked person walks about to look for food.
    He says, “Where is it?”
He knows that he cannot escape from trouble.
²⁴     He is afraid and confused.
Trouble is ready to attack him,
    like a king with his army.
²⁵ That happens to the person who turns against God.
    He thinks that he is greater than Almighty God.
²⁶ He is proud enough to attack God.
    He holds a big shield as he runs to attack God!
²⁷ He eats too much
    and his whole body is very fat.^[b]
28 He lives in a town that is empty.
    No one else lives in the houses there.
The buildings will soon fall down
    and they will become heaps of stones.
²⁹ He will not be rich.
    He will lose his valuable things.
    Everything that he has will disappear.
³⁰ When it becomes dark,
    he will not be able to escape.
He will be like a tree that fire has burned.
    God's breath will blow him away!
³¹ He may trust in useless things to save him.
    But he is deceiving himself.
Any help that he receives will also be useless.
³² Before he is old,
    his life will end.
Like a tree that makes no leaves,
    he will have no success in life.
³³ He will be like a vine that loses its grapes.
    They fall off before they are ready to eat.
He will be like an olive tree that loses its flowers,
    so that no olives grow on it.
³⁴ People who turn away from God are like that.
    They have no family to live after them.
If they use the money from bribes to build their homes,
    fire will destroy those homes.
³⁵ They make plans to cause trouble,
    so that evil things happen.
Lies are what come out from inside them.’