³ O Eternal One, show us Your mercy. We beg You.
    We are not strangers to contempt and pain.
⁴ We have suffered more than our share
    of ridicule and contempt from self-appointed critics who live easy lives
    and pompously display their own importance.

¹⁷     Bildad claims the flame of the wicked is blown out.
        But how often is their lamp extinguished?
    How often does disaster strike them or does God give them pain
        because of His anger at what they’ve done?

¹⁸     How often are they as straw in the wind
        or the chaff separated from the grain by fierce winds?
¹⁹     It is said, “God stores away a man’s misdeeds
        and delivers them to his children.”^[a]
        Let Him repay the man Himself, so the man can know it.
²⁰     Let the wicked see his ruin with his own eyes
        as he drinks down the wrath of the Highest One.
²¹     After all, once he’s dead and gone and his time is up,
        what will he care for his household and family?
²²     Now who dares impart knowledge to God
        since He stands as judge over the most powerful?
²³     One person dies when he is fit and strong,
        completely secure and totally at peace;
²⁴     His body^[b] is vigorous and well fed;
        his bones are strong and moist.
²⁵     Another person dies with a bitter soul,
        having never even tasted goodness.
²⁶     But they lie down together in the same dust,
        covered by the same blanket of worms.

²⁷     I know how your minds work, my friends,
        and how you plan to wrong me—your thoughts of retribution.
²⁸     You will counter, “Show me!
        Where is the palatial estate?
        Where are the vaulted tents of the wicked?”
²⁹     But I say, have you never consulted with those who travel this world?
        They can tell you the complexions of many lands.
    But you’ve never permitted their witness
        in your courts of opinion, have you?
³⁰     Well, if you had, you’d have heard
        that when disaster strikes, the wicked are spared;
    On the day of fury,
        they are escorted safely through.
³¹     Who challenges them openly regarding their actions,
        and who repays them on account of all they’ve done?
³²     When death finally comes and they are laid in their graves,
        guards stand watch over their tombs, fending off grave robbers.
³³     Laid to rest beside the stream, clods of earth cover them kindly;
        while countless souls have gone before, all of humanity follows after.
³⁴     So, my friends, how can you continue trying to comfort me with these empty consolations?
        So far, your answers have been only thinly veiled lies!