Job 27  Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

27 Job again took up his discourse and said,

² As God lives, Who has taken away my right and denied me justice, and the Almighty, Who has vexed and embittered my life,

³ As long as my life is still whole within me, and the breath of God is [yet] in my nostrils,

⁴ My lips shall not speak untruth, nor shall my tongue utter deceit.

⁵ God forbid that I should justify you—saying you are right [in your accusations against me]; till I die, I will not put away my integrity from me.

⁶ My uprightness and my right standing with God I hold fast and will not let them go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days and it shall not reproach me as long as I live.

⁷ Let my enemy be as the wicked, and let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous.

⁸ For what is the hope of the godless and polluted, even though he has gained [in this world], when God cuts him off and takes away his life?

⁹ Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him?

¹⁰ Will he take delight in the Almighty? Will he call upon God at all times?

¹¹ I will teach you regarding the hand and handiwork of God; that which is with the Almighty [God’s actual treatment of the wicked man] will I not conceal.

¹² Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain [cherishing foolish notions]?

¹³ This [which I am about to tell] is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage which oppressors shall receive from the Almighty:

¹⁴ If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword; and his offspring will not have sufficient bread.

¹⁵ Those who survive him, [the pestilence] will bury, and [their] widows will make no lamentation.

¹⁶ Though he heaps up silver like dust and piles up clothing like clay,

¹⁷ He may prepare it, but the just will wear it, and the innocent will divide the silver.

¹⁸ He builds his house like a moth or a spider, like a booth which a watchman makes [to last for a season].

¹⁹ [The wicked] will lie down rich, but does it not again; he opens his eyes, and [his wealth] is gone.

²⁰ Terrors overtake him like a [suddenly loosened] flood; a windstorm steals him away in the night.

²¹ The east wind lifts him up, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.

²² For [God and the storm] hurl at him without pity and unsparingly [their thunderbolts of wrath]; he flees in haste before His power.

²³ [God causes] men to clap their hands at him [in malignant joy] and hiss him out of his place.