Job 18

Bildad’s Second Speech

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,[#Hebrew “And”]

²“How long will you hunt for words?[#Literally “Until when”; #Plural; #Literally “will you set a snare for words”]

Consider, and afterward we shall speak.

³Why are we considered as animals?

Why are we taken as stupid in your eyes?

⁴“You who are tearing yourself in your anger,[#Literally “his soul,” or “his individual self”; #Hebrew “his”]

will the earth be forsaken because of you?

Or will the rock be removed from its place?

⁵Furthermore, the light of the wicked is put out,[#Or “Also”]

and the flame of his fire will not shine.

⁶The light becomes dark in his tent,

and his lamp above him is put out.

⁷“His strong steps are shortened,[#Literally “The steps of his power”]

and his own schemes throw him down,

⁸for he is thrust into a net by his feet,

and he walks into a pitfall.

⁹A trap seizes him by the heel;

a snare takes hold of him.

¹⁰His rope is hidden in the ground,

and his trap on the path.

¹¹“Sudden terrors terrify him all around,

and they chase him at his heels.

¹²His wealth will become hunger,

and disaster is ready for his stumbling.

¹³It consumes parts of his skin;

the firstborn of death consumes his limbs.

¹⁴He is torn from his tent in which he trusted,[#Literally “his trust”]

and it brought him to the king of terrors.

¹⁵“Nothing remains for him in his tent;[#Literally “From not”]

sulfur is scattered upon his dwelling place.

¹⁶His roots dry up below,[#Literally “from under”]

and its branches wither away above.

¹⁷His remembrance perishes from the earth,

and there is not a name for him on the street.

¹⁸“They thrust him from light into darkness,

and they drive him out from the world.

¹⁹There is no offspring for him nor a descendant among his people,[#Hebrew “and not”]

and there is not a survivor in his abode.

²⁰Those of the west are appalled over his fate,[#Literally “his day”]

and those of the east are seized with horror.

²¹Surely these are the dwellings of the godless,

and this is the dwelling place of him who knows not God.”