Is there no end to your empty words?
What provokes you that you continue testifying?

Even if I speak, my suffering is not relieved,
and if I hold back, what have I lost?

I was at ease, but He shattered me;
He seized me by the scruff of the neck
and smashed me to pieces.
He set me up as His target;

although my hands are free from violence
and my prayer is pure.

Even now my witness is in heaven,
and my advocate is in the heights!

My friends scoff at me
as I weep before God.

I wish that someone might arbitrate
between a man and God
just as a man pleads for his friend.

My spirit is broken.
My days are extinguished.
A graveyard awaits me.

Yet the righteous person will hold to his way,
and the one whose hands are clean will grow stronger.

But come back and try again, all of you.
I will not find a wise man among you.

If I await Sheol as my home,
spread out my bed in darkness,

where then is my hope?
Who can see any hope for me?

Why are we regarded as cattle,
as stupid in your sight?

Yes, the light of the wicked is extinguished;
the flame of his fire does not glow.

The light in his tent grows dark,
and the lamp beside him is put out.

His powerful stride is shortened,
and his own schemes trip him up.

His strength is depleted;
disaster lies ready for him to stumble.

He is ripped from the security of his tent
and marched away to the king of terrors.

Nothing he owned remains in his tent.
Burning sulfur is scattered over his home.

He is driven from light to darkness
and chased from the inhabited world.

Indeed, such is the dwelling of the unjust man,
and this is the place of the one who does not know God.

Even if it is true that I have sinned,
my mistake concerns only me.

If you really want to appear superior to me
and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,

then understand that it is God who has wronged me
and caught me in His net.

I cry out: “Violence!” but get no response;
I call for help, but there is no justice.

His anger burns against me,
and He regards me as one of His enemies.

My house guests and female servants regard me as a stranger;
I am a foreigner in their sight.

My breath is offensive to my wife,
and my own family finds me repulsive.

Why do you persecute me as God does?
Will you never get enough of my flesh?

I will see Him myself;
my eyes will look at Him, and not as a stranger.
My heart longs within me.

then be afraid of the sword,
because wrath brings punishment by the sword,
so that you may know there is a judgment.

This is why my unsettling thoughts compel me to answer,
because I am upset!

he will vanish forever like his own dung.
Those who know him will ask, “Where is he?”

Because his appetite is never satisfied,
he does not let anything he desires escape.

Nothing is left for him to consume;
therefore, his prosperity will not last.

When he fills his stomach,
God will send His burning anger against him,
raining it down on him while he is eating.

Total darkness is reserved for his treasures.
A fire unfanned by human hands will consume him;
it will feed on what is left in his tent.

This is the wicked man’s lot from God,
the inheritance God ordained for him.

As for me, is my complaint against a man?
Then why shouldn’t I be impatient?

Yet they say to God: “Leave us alone!
We don’t want to know Your ways.

Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him,
and what will we gain by pleading with Him?”

But their prosperity is not of their own doing.
The counsel of the wicked is far from me!

How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
Does disaster come on them?
Does He apportion destruction in His anger?

For what does he care about his family once he is dead,
when the number of his months has run out?

His body is well fed,
and his bones are full of marrow.

For you say, “Where now is the nobleman’s house?”
and “Where are the tents the wicked lived in?”

Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of disaster,
rescued from the day of wrath.

He is carried to the grave,
and someone keeps watch over his tomb.

The dirt on his grave is sweet to him.
Everyone follows behind him,
and those who go before him are without number.

Can a man be of any use to God?
Can even a wise man be of use to Him?

Isn’t God as high as the heavens?
And look at the highest stars—how lofty they are!

Clouds veil Him so that He cannot see,
as He walks on the circle of the sky.”

They were the ones who said to God, “Leave us alone!”
and “What can the Almighty do to us?”

But it was He who filled their houses with good things.
The counsel of the wicked is far from me!

Today also my complaint is bitter.
His hand is heavy despite my groaning.

If I go east, He is not there,
and if I go west, I cannot perceive Him.

When He is at work to the north, I cannot see Him;
when He turns south, I cannot find Him.

Yet He knows the way I have taken;
when He has tested me, I will emerge as pure gold.

But He is unchangeable; who can oppose Him?
He does what He desires.

They drive away the donkeys owned by the fatherless
and take the widow’s ox as collateral.

The fatherless infant is snatched from the breast;
the nursing child of the poor is seized as collateral.

For the morning is like darkness to them.
Surely they are familiar with the terrors of darkness!

They float on the surface of the water.
Their section of the land is cursed,
so that they never go to their vineyards.

As dry ground and heat snatch away the melted snow,
so Sheol steals those who have sinned.

The womb forgets them;
worms feed on them;
they are remembered no more.
So injustice is broken like a tree.

If this is not true, then who can prove me a liar
and show that my speech is worthless?

how much less man, who is a maggot,
and the son of man, who is a worm!

How you have helped the powerless
and delivered the arm that is weak!

Who did you speak these words to?
Whose breath came out of your mouth?

Sheol is naked before God,
and Abaddon has no covering.

These are but the fringes of His ways;
how faint is the word we hear of Him!
Who can understand His mighty thunder?

As God lives, who has deprived me of justice,
and the Almighty who has made me bitter,

as long as my breath is still in me
and the breath from God remains in my nostrils,

I will cling to my righteousness and never let it go.
My conscience will not accuse me as long as I live!

For what hope does the godless man have when he is cut off,
when God takes away his life?

This is a wicked man’s lot from God,
the inheritance the ruthless receive from the Almighty.

The house he built is like a moth’s cocoon
or a booth set up by a watchman.

He lies down wealthy, but will do so no more;
when he opens his eyes, it is gone.

An east wind picks him up, and he is gone;
it carries him away from his place.

Surely there is a mine for silver
and a place where gold is refined.

Iron is taken from the ground,
and copper is smelted from ore.

Food may come from the earth,
but below the surface the earth is transformed as by fire.

He dams up the streams from flowing
so that he may bring to light what is hidden.

But where can wisdom be found,
and where is understanding located?

Coral and quartz are not worth mentioning.
The price of wisdom is beyond pearls.

Where then does wisdom come from,
and where is understanding located?

It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing
and concealed from the birds of the sky.

He said to mankind,
“The fear of the Lord is this: wisdom.
And to turn from evil is understanding.”

If only I could be as in months gone by,
in the days when God watched over me,

I would be as I was in the days of my youth
when God’s friendship rested on my tent,

So I thought: I will die in my own nest
and multiply my days as the sand.

They waited for me as for the rain
and opened their mouths as for spring showers.

I directed their course and presided as chief.
I lived as a king among his troops,
like one who comforts those who mourn.

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But now they mock me,
men younger than I am,
whose fathers I would have refused to put
with my sheep dogs.

What use to me was the strength of their hands?
Their vigor had left them.

They were expelled from human society;
people shouted at them as if they were thieves.

They advance as through a gaping breach;
they keep rolling in through the ruins.

Now my life is poured out before my eyes,
and days of suffering have seized me.

My clothing is distorted with great force;
He chokes me by the neck of my garment.

My lyre is used for mourning
and my flute for the sound of weeping.

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