² “My thoughts are pressing me to answer;
I feel such an urge to speak!
³ I have heard reproof that outrages me,
but a spirit past my understanding gives me a reply.

⁴ “Don’t you know that ever since time began,
ever since humans were placed on earth,
⁵ that the triumph of the wicked is always short-lived,
and the joy of the ungodly is gone in a moment?
⁶ His pride may mount to the heavens,
his head may touch the clouds;
⁷ but he will vanish completely, like his own dung —
those who used to see him will ask, ‘Where is he?’
⁸ Like a dream he flies off and is not found again;
like a vision in the night he is chased away.
⁹ The eye which once saw him will see him no more,
his place will not behold him again.
¹⁰ His children will have to pay back the poor;
his hands will restore their wealth.
¹¹ His bones may be filled with [the vigor of] his youth,
but it will join him lying in the dust.

¹² “Wickedness may taste sweet in his mouth,
he may savor and roll it around on his tongue,
¹³ he may linger over it and not let it go
but keep it there in his mouth —
¹⁴ yet in his stomach his food goes bad,
it works inside him like snake venom;
¹⁵ the wealth he swallows he vomits back up;
God makes him disgorge it.
¹⁶ He sucks the poison of asps,
the viper’s fangs will kill him.
¹⁷ He will not enjoy the rivers,
the streams flowing with honey and cream.
¹⁸ He will have to give back what he toiled for;
he won’t get to swallow it down —
to the degree that he acquired wealth,
he won’t get to enjoy it.

¹⁹ “For he crushed and abandoned the poor,
seizing houses he did not build,
²⁰ because his appetite would not let him rest,
in his greed he let nothing escape;
²¹ nothing is left that he did not devour;
therefore his well-being will not last.
²² With all needs satisfied, he will be in distress;
the full force of misery will come over him.

²³ “This is what will fill his belly! —
[God] will lay on him all his burning anger
and make it rain over him, into his insides.
²⁴ If he flees from the weapon of iron,
the bow of bronze will pierce him through —
²⁵ he pulls the arrow out of his back,
the shining tip comes out from his innards;
terrors come upon him.

²⁶ “Total darkness is laid up for his treasures,
a fire fanned by no one will consume him,
and calamity awaits what is left in his tent.
²⁷ The heavens will reveal his guilt,
and the earth will rise up against him.
²⁸ The income of his household will be carried off;
his goods will flow away on the day of his wrath.
²⁹ This is God’s reward for the wicked,
the heritage God decrees for him.”