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18Then Bildad the Shuhite answered: ²“How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and then we shall speak. ³Why are we counted as cattle? Why are we stupid in your sight? ⁴You who tear yourself in your anger— shall the earth be forsaken because of you, or the rock be removed out of its place?

⁵“Surely the light of the wicked is put out, and the flame of their fire does not shine. ⁶The light is dark in their tent, and the lamp above them is put out. ⁷Their strong steps are shortened, and their own schemes throw them down. ⁸For they are thrust into a net by their own feet, and they walk into a pitfall. ⁹A trap seizes them by the heel; a snare lays hold of them. ¹⁰A rope is hid for them in the ground, a trap for them in the path.

¹¹Terrors frighten them on every side, and chase them at their heels. ¹²Their strength is consumed by hunger, and calamity is ready for their stumbling. ¹³By disease their skin is consumed, the firstborn of Death consumes their limbs. ¹⁴They are torn from the tent in which they trusted, and are brought to the king of terrors. ¹⁵In their tents nothing remains; sulfur is scattered upon their habitations. ¹⁶Their roots dry up beneath, and their branches wither above. ¹⁷Their memory perishes from the earth, and they have no name in the street. ¹⁸They are thrust from light into darkness, and driven out of the world. ¹⁹They have no offspring or descendant among their people, and no survivor where they used to live. ²⁰They of the west are appalled at their fate, and horror seizes those of the east. ²¹Surely such are the dwellings of the ungodly, such is the place of those who do not know God.”

19Then Job answered: ²“How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words? ³These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me? ⁴And even if it is true that I have erred, my error remains with me. ⁵If indeed you magnify yourselves against me, and make my humiliation an argument against me, ⁶know then that God has put me in the wrong, and closed his net around me. ⁷Even when I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice.

⁸He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths. ⁹He has stripped my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head. ¹⁰He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, he has uprooted my hope like a tree. ¹¹He has kindled his wrath against me, and counts me as his adversary. ¹²His troops come on together; they have thrown up siegeworks against me, and encamp around my tent. ¹³“He has put my family far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. ¹⁴My relatives and my close friends have failed me; ¹⁵the guests in my house have forgotten me; my serving girls count me as a stranger; I have become an alien in their eyes. ¹⁶I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must myself plead with him. ¹⁷My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family. ¹⁸Even young children despise me; when I rise, they talk against me. ¹⁹All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me. ²⁰My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. ²¹Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! ²²Why do you, like God, pursue me, never satisfied with my flesh?

²³“O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! ²⁴O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! ²⁵For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; ²⁶and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, ²⁷whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! ²⁸If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him’; ²⁹be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”