Bildad: God Punishes the Wicked

1But Baldad the Suhite responded by saying:

2How long will you throw around words? Understand first, and then let us speak.

3Why have we been treated like mules, as if we were unworthy before you?

4You, who ruins your own soul in your fury, will the earth be forsaken because of you, and will the cliffs be moved from their place?

5Will not the light of the impious be put out, and the flame of his fire refuse to shine?

6Light will become darkness in his tabernacle, and the lamp that is over him will be extinguished.

7His strong steps will be constrained, and his own counsel will cast him down uncontrollably.

8For he has caused his own feet to go into a net, and he has walked into its web.

9His heel will be held in a snare, and thirst will rage against him.

10A trap has been hidden for him in the earth, and a decoy, along his path.

11Horrifying things will terrify him everywhere and will entangle his feet.

12Let his strength be diminished by famine, and let starvation invade his ribs.

13Let it devour the beauty of his skin; let the ancient death consume his arms.

14Let his confidence be torn away from his tabernacle, and let ruin trample over him like a king.

15Let the companions of he who is not, dwell in his tabernacle; let brimstone rain down upon his tabernacle.

16Let his roots be dried up from beneath him, and his harvest be crushed from above.

17Let the memory of him perish from the earth, and let not his name be celebrated in the streets.

18He will expel him from light into darkness, and he will remove him from the world.

19Neither his offspring, nor his descendents, will exist among his people, nor will there be any remnants in his country.

20The last will be astonished at his day, and the first will be overcome with horror.

21And so, these are the tabernacles of the sinful, and this the place of he who does not know God.