1 Bildad from Shuhah chimed in:
2 "How monotonous these word games are getting! Get serious! We need to get down to business.
3 Why do you treat your friends like slow-witted animals? You look down on us as if we don't know anything.
4 Why are you working yourself up like this? Do you want the world redesigned to suit you? Should reality be suspended to accommodate you?
5 "Here's the rule: The light of the wicked is put out. Their flame dies down and is extinguished.
6 Their house goes dark-- every lamp in the place goes out.
7 Their strong strides weaken, falter; they stumble into their own traps.
8 They get all tangled up in their own red tape,
9 Their feet are grabbed and caught, their necks in a noose.
10 They trip on ropes they've hidden, and fall into pits they've dug themselves.
11 Terrors come at them from all sides. They run helter-skelter.
12 The hungry grave is ready to gobble them up for supper,
13 To lay them out for a gourmet meal, a treat for ravenous Death.
14 They are snatched from their home sweet home and marched straight to the death house.
15 Their lives go up in smoke; acid rain soaks their ruins.
16 Their roots rot and their branches wither.
17 They'll never again be remembered-- nameless in unmarked graves.
18 They are plunged from light into darkness, banished from the world.
19 And they leave empty-handed--not one single child-- nothing to show for their life on this earth.
20 Westerners are aghast at their fate, easterners are horrified:
21 'Oh no! So this is what happens to perverse people. This is how the God-ignorant end up!'"