Study Desk

For I have but few years left before I leave on the road of no return.

"My spirit is broken, my days are quenched, I am marked for the grave.

Be my guarantor, yourself! Who else will put up a pledge for me?

For you have shut their minds to common sense; therefore you will not let them triumph.

"But as for you all, turn around! Come back! — yet I won't find a wise man among you.

"If I hope for Sh'ol to be my house; if I spread my couch in the dark;

You can tear yourself to pieces in your anger, but the earth won't be abandoned just for your sake; not even a rock will be moved from its place.

For his own feet plunge him into a net, he wanders into its meshes.

A noose is hidden for him in the ground; pitfalls lie in his path.

"Trouble is hungry for him, calamity ready for his fall;

I call my servant, and he doesn't answer, even if I beg him for a favor!

"Pity me, friends of mine, pity me! For the hand of God has struck me!

I will see him for myself, my eyes, not someone else's, will behold him. My heart grows weak inside me!

You had best fear the sword, for anger brings the punishment of the sword, so that you will know there is judgment!"

He will have to give back what he toiled for; he won't get to swallow it down — to the degree that he acquired wealth, he won't get to enjoy it.

"For he crushed and abandoned the poor, seizing houses he did not build,

"Total darkness is laid up for his treasures, a fire fanned by no one will consume him, and calamity awaits what is left in his tent.

This is God's reward for the wicked, the heritage God decrees for him."

"As for me, is my complaint merely to other people? Don't I have grounds for being short-tempered?

God lays up for their children [the punishment for their] iniquity. He should lay it on [the wicked] themselves, so that they can feel it!