² “My troubled thoughts cause me to answer,
    because I am very upset.
³ You correct me and I am insulted,
    but I understand how to answer you.

⁴ “You know how it has been for a long time,
    ever since people were first put on the earth.
⁵ The happiness of evil people is brief,
    and the joy of the wicked lasts only a moment.
⁶ Their pride may be as high as the heavens,
    and their heads may touch the clouds,
⁷ but they will be gone forever, like their own dung.
    People who knew them will say, ‘Where are they?’
⁸ They will fly away like a dream
    and not be found again;
    they will be chased away like a vision in the night.
⁹ Those who saw them will not see them again;
    the places where they lived will see them no more.
¹⁰ Their children will have to pay back the poor,
    and they will have to give up their wealth.
¹¹ They had the strength of their youth in their bones,
    but it will lie with them in the dust of death.

¹² “Evil may taste sweet in their mouths,
    and they may hide it under their tongues.
¹³ They cannot stand to let go of it;
    they keep it in their mouths.
¹⁴ But their food will turn sour in their stomachs,
    like the poison of a snake inside them.
¹⁵ They have swallowed riches, but they will spit them out;
    God will make them vomit their riches up.
¹⁶ They will suck the poison of snakes,
    and the snake’s fangs will kill them.
¹⁷ They will not admire the sparkling streams
    or the rivers flowing with honey and cream.
¹⁸ They must give back what they worked for without eating it;
    they will not enjoy the money they made from their trading,
¹⁹ because they troubled the poor and left them with nothing.
    They have taken houses they did not build.

²⁰ “Evil people never lack an appetite,
    and nothing escapes their selfishness.
²¹ But nothing will be left for them to eat;
    their riches will not continue.
²² When they still have plenty, trouble will catch up to them,
    and great misery will come down on them.
²³ When the wicked fill their stomachs,
    God will send his burning anger against them,
    and blows of punishment will fall on them like rain.
²⁴ The wicked may run away from an iron weapon,
    but a bronze arrow will stab them.
²⁵ They will pull the arrows out of their backs
    and pull the points out of their livers.
Terrors will come over them;
²⁶ total darkness waits for their treasure.
A fire not fanned by people will destroy them
    and burn up what is left of their tents.
²⁷ The heavens will show their guilt,
    and the earth will rise up against them.
²⁸ A flood will carry their houses away,
    swept away on the day of God’s anger.
²⁹ This is what God plans for evil people;
    this is what he has decided they will receive.”