Bildad: God Punishes the Wicked

1Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

2“Until when will you⁺ set snares for words?

Consider, and afterward we will speak.

3Why are we regarded as cattle,

as stopped up in your⁺ eyes?

4The one tearing himself in his anger—

for your sake will the earth be forsaken

and the rock moved from its place?

5Indeed, the light of the wicked goes out,

and the flame of his fire does not shine.

6The light is dark in his tent,

and his lamp above him goes out.

7The strides of his strength are narrowed,

and his counsel casts him down.

8For he is cast into a net by his feet,

and into a mesh he walks.

9A trap seizes him by the heel,

and a snare shall prevail over him.

10A cord for him is hidden in the ground,

and a trap for him upon the path.

11Terrors round about make him tremble

and scatter him at his feet.

12His strength goes hungry,

and destruction is ready at his side.

13It devours parts of his skin;

the firstborn of death devours his parts.

14He is torn from his tent of his safety,

and is marched off to the king of terrors.

15That not unto him dwells in his tent;

brimstone is scattered on his abode.

16Below, his roots are dried out,

and above his branch withers.

17His memory perishes from the earth,

and no name for him is upon the face of the street.

18They drive him from light into darkness,

and they chase him from the world.

19No offspring is unto him, and no successor among his people,

and no survivor in his dwellings.

20Those in the west are devastated at his day,

and those in the east are seized with horror.

21Surely these are the dwellings of a perverse one,

and this is is the place of one who does not know God.”