Job 18

Bildad speaks to Job again #18:1 Bildad tells Job how God punishes wicked people. He tells Job to listen to people who can help him. He says that Job must become wise. Then he will understand what has happened to him.

1Then Bildad, the man from Shuah, replied. This is what he said:

2‘You should not continue to talk like that! Stop and think carefully. Then we can talk.

3You should not think that we are as foolish as cows.

What happens to wicked people

4You are so angry that you are hurting yourself. You will never change the way that things happen in the world. Your anger will not cause the earth to shake, or any rocks to move from their places.

5The light of a wicked person's life will stop shining. His fire will no longer burn brightly.

6His tent will be dark. The lamp that gives him light will stop burning.

7Once he was strong but now his legs are weak. His own ideas cause him to fall down.

8He does not know where he is going and he walks into a dangerous trap.

9A trap catches his foot and he cannot move.

10Someone has hidden a rope on the ground. It catches him as he walks along.

11Everywhere a wicked person goes, things frighten him. He cannot escape from them.

12Now he is hungry and his strength has disappeared. Terrible trouble is ready to take hold of him whenever it has the chance.

13A bad disease eats his skin. It causes his arms and his legs to become useless and he dies.

14Then he has to leave his tent where he had lived safely. He will have to meet the terrible king of death.

15Other people will live in his tent. They have used sulphur to burn all his things.

16He is like a tree whose roots have become dry, and its branches have fallen off.

17Nobody remembers that he ever lived. They have forgotten his name.

18The wicked person has had to leave this world. He has gone from a place where there is light to a place where it is dark.

19He has no children or grandchildren. He has no family to live in his home.

20All people are very upset when they see what has happened to him. Wherever they live, they are very upset.

21I know that this is what happens to the homes of evil people. It happens to people who turn away from God.’