They conceive mischief, and bring forth evil, and their belly prepares deceit.

They have gaped on me with their mouth; and have scornfully beaten me on the cheek; they gather themselves against me.

He has made me also a byword of the peoples; and I am one in whose face they spit.

They set night for day; the light is near in the face of darkness.

They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our descent together is in the dust.

They drive him from light to darkness, and they make him flee from the world.

Even young children despise me; I arise, and they speak against me.

Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were engraved in a book!

Oh that they were cut with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!

and even after they corrupt my skin, yet this: in my flesh I shall see God,

he shall perish forever like his dung; they who see him shall say, Where is he?

Why do the wicked live? They grow old and become mighty in power.

They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.

They lift up voice at the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the flute.

They spend their days in good, and in a moment go down to the grave.

And they say to God, Depart from us; for we do not desire the knowledge of Your ways;

they are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm steals away.

They lie down together in the dust, and the worms shall cover them.

that the wicked is kept for the day of calamity? They shall be brought to the day of wrath.

Is not God high in Heaven? And behold the leading stars, for they are high.

They were seized, but there was not time; their foundation was poured out by a flood;

For they have humiliated you, and you shall say, Pride! And He shall save the lowly of eyes.

They remove the landmarks; they seize flocks and feed them.

They drive away the ass of the fatherless; they take the widow's ox for a pledge.

They turn the needy out of the way; the poor of the earth hide themselves together.

Behold, like wild asses in the desert, they go forth to their work, rising early for a prey. The wilderness yields food for them and for their children.

They reap his fodder in the field; and they gather the grapes of the wicked.

They lodge the naked without clothing, and give no covering in the cold.

They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of shelter.

They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge from the poor.

They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaves from the hungry.

They press out oil between their walls; they tread their winepresses, and still suffer thirst.

They are of those who rebel against the light; they know not His ways, nor stay in His paths.

In the dark they dig through houses which they had marked for themselves in the daytime; they do not know the light.

For the morning is to them like the shadow of death; for they know the terrors of the shadow of death.

They are lifted up for a little while, but are gone and brought low; they are gathered in like all others, and are cut off like the heads of the ears of grain.

This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the inheritance of cruel men which they shall receive from the Almighty.

Surely there is a mine for the silver, and a place where they refine gold.

He opens a shaft far from the visitor; they are forgotten by man's foot; they hang far away from men, they swing to and fro.

They listened to me, and waited, and kept silent at my counsel.

After my words they did not go on; and my speech dropped on them.

And they waited for me like the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.

I smiled kindly on them when they did not believe; and they did not make the light of my face fall.

They are dried up with want and famine; they who gnaw the dry ground, which was before waste and ruin,

They are driven forth from the midst; they cried against them as a thief.

They dwell in the chasms of the valleys, in holes of the earth and in rocks.

They bray among the bushes; they huddle together under the nettles;

sons of fools, yea, sons without a name; they have been whipped out of the land.

They despise me, and they flee far from me; they do not spare spit from my face.

Because He has loosed His bowstring and afflicted me, they have also thrown off the bridle before me.

On my right a brood rises; they push away my feet and raise up against me the ways of their ruin.

They have broken down my path, they gain by my trouble; they have no helper.

As through a wide break they came on; they roll under a ruin.

Terrors have turned on me; they pursue my soul like the wind; and my good passes away like a cloud.

Surely He will not stretch out His hand to the ruin-heap, though they cry in their misfortune.

If I despised the cause of my man servant or of my slave-girl, when they argued with me;

Also his wrath was kindled against his three friends, because they had found no answer and had condemned Job.

And Elihu had waited beside Job with words, because they were older than he in days.

They are broken; they answer no more; words have left them.

Shall I wait because you do not speak, because they stand still, answering no more?

In a dream, a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men; while they slumber on the bed;

His flesh wastes away, not seen; and his bones laid bare; they were not seen.

In a moment they die, and a people are shaken at midnight and pass away; and the mighty shall be taken away without a hand.

Therefore He knows their works, and He overturns in the night, so that they are destroyed.

because thus they turned from following Him, and they did not consider all His ways;

Look to the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds; they are higher than you.

From the host of tyrannies they cry out; they cry out because of the arm of the multitude.

There they cry, but He gives no answer, because of the pride of evildoers.

He withdraws not His eyes from the righteous, but they are like kings on the throne; yes, He causes them to sit forever, and they are very high.

And if they are bound in chains, and are held in cords of affliction,

then He shows them their work, and their sins, that they have behaved themselves proudly.

He also opens their ears to teaching, and commands that they return from iniquity.

If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their days in blessedness, and their years in pleasures.

But if they do not obey, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.

But the ungodly in heart heap up wrath; they cry not when He binds them.

For He draws up the drops of water; they distill rain into mist,

and it is turned around by His guidance, so that they may do whatever He commands them on the face of the world in the earth.

It is turned like clay under a seal; and they stand forth like a garment.

Can you send lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?

when they crouch in dens, and sit in the cover of their hiding place?

Can you number the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time for their bearing,

when they bow down and bring forth; they send out their pangs.

Their young ones are strong, they multiply with grain; they go forth and do not return to them again.

Shall your companions bargain over him? Shall they divide him among the merchants?

they are joined one to another, they clasp each other so that they can not be separated.

The mighty are afraid from his rising; they are beside themselves from the crashing.

And came to him all his brothers, and all his sisters, and all those who had known him before. And they ate bread with him in his house, and consoled him and comforted him over all the evil that Jehovah had brought on him. Each one also gave him a piece of money, and each one a ring of gold.

For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is wickedness; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.

Hold them guilty, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against You.

When my enemies have turned back, they shall fall and perish before You.

The nations have sunk down in the pit that they made; their foot is caught in the net which they hid.

Put them in fear, O Jehovah, let the nations know they are but men. Selah.

The wicked in his pride persecutes the poor; let them be taken in the plans that they have imagined.

for lo, the wicked bend their bow; they make ready their arrow on the string, so that they may secretly shoot at the upright in heart.

They speak vanity each one with his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. The fool has said in his heart, There is no God! They acted corruptly; they have done abominable works, there is none who does good.

All have gone aside, together they are filthy; there is none who does good, no, not one.

Have all the workers of iniquity not known, eating up My people as they eat bread? They have not called on Jehovah.

There they were in great fear; for God is in the generation of the righteous.

As to the saints in the earth, they are the excellent, in whom is all my delight.