Job - Chapter 20 | Good News Translation

  • 1. Job, you upset me. Now I'm impatient to answer.
  • 2. {cf15I (SEE 20:1)}
  • 3. What you have said is an insult, but I know how to reply to you.
  • 4. Surely you know that from ancient times, when we humans were first placed on earth,
  • 5. no wicked people have been happy for long.
  • 6. They may grow great, towering to the sky, so great that their heads reach the clouds,
  • 7. but they will be blown away like dust. Those who used to know them will wonder where they have gone.
  • 8. They will vanish like a dream, like a vision at night, and never be seen again.
  • 9. The wicked will disappear from the place where they used to live;
  • 10. and their children will make good what they stole from the poor.
  • 11. Their bodies used to be young and vigorous, but soon they will turn to dust.
  • 12. Evil tastes so good to them that they keep some in their mouths to enjoy its flavor.
  • 13. {cf15I (SEE 20:12)}
  • 14. But in their stomachs the food turns bitter, as bitter as any poison could be.
  • 15. The wicked vomit up the wealth they stole; God takes it back, even out of their stomachs.
  • 16. What the evil people swallow is like poison; it kills them like the bite of a deadly snake.
  • 17. They will not live to see rivers of olive oil or streams that flow with milk and honey.
  • 18. They will have to give up all they have worked for; they will have no chance to enjoy their wealth,
  • 19. because they oppressed and neglected the poor and seized houses someone else had built.
  • 20. Their greed is never satisfied.
  • 21. When they eat, there is nothing left over, but now their prosperity comes to an end.
  • 22. At the height of their success all the weight of misery will crush them.
  • 23. Let them eat all they want! God will punish them in fury and anger.
  • 24. When they try to escape from an iron sword, a bronze bow will shoot them down.
  • 25. Arrows stick through their bodies; the shiny points drip with their blood, and terror grips their hearts.
  • 26. Everything they have saved is destroyed; a fire not lit by human hands burns them and all their family.
  • 27. Heaven reveals their sin, and the earth gives testimony against them.
  • 28. All their wealth will be destroyed in the flood of God's anger.
  • 29. This is the fate of wicked people, the fate that God assigns to them.
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