Job 18

Bildad's Second Attack 1-4

Plunged from Light into Darkness

Bildad from Shuhah chimed in: "How monotonous these word games are getting!
   Get serious! We need to get down to business.
Why do you treat your friends like slow-witted animals?
   You look down on us as if we don't know anything.
Why are you working yourself up like this?
   Do you want the world redesigned to suit you?
   Should reality be suspended to accommodate you?

5-21    "Here's the rule: The light of the wicked is put out.
   Their flame dies down and is extinguished.
Their house goes dark—
   every lamp in the place goes out.
Their strong strides weaken, falter;
   they stumble into their own traps.
They get all tangled up
   in their own red tape,
Their feet are grabbed and caught,
   their necks in a noose.
They trip on ropes they've hidden,
   and fall into pits they've dug themselves.
Terrors come at them from all sides.
   They run helter-skelter.
The hungry grave is ready
   to gobble them up for supper,
To lay them out for a gourmet meal,
   a treat for ravenous Death.
They are snatched from their home sweet home
   and marched straight to the death house.
Their lives go up in smoke;
   acid rain soaks their ruins.
Their roots rot
   and their branches wither.
They'll never again be remembered—
   nameless in unmarked graves.
They are plunged from light into darkness,
   banished from the world.
And they leave empty-handed—not one single child—
   nothing to show for their life on this earth.
Westerners are aghast at their fate,
   easterners are horrified:
'Oh no! So this is what happens to perverse people.
   This is how the God-ignorant end up!'"