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20:1  Job, you upset me. Now I'm impatient to answer.
20:2  Job, you upset me. Now I'm impatient to answer.
20:3  What you have said is an insult, but I know how to reply to you.
20:4  Surely you know that from ancient times, when we humans were first placed on earth,
20:5  no wicked people have been happy for long.
20:6  They may grow great, towering to the sky, so great that their heads reach the clouds,
20:7  but they will be blown away like dust. Those who used to know them will wonder where they have gone.
20:8  They will vanish like a dream, like a vision at night, and never be seen again.
20:9  The wicked will disappear from the place where they used to live;
20:10  and their children will make good what they stole from the poor.
20:11  Their bodies used to be young and vigorous, but soon they will turn to dust.
20:12  Evil tastes so good to them that they keep some in their mouths to enjoy its flavor.
20:13  Evil tastes so good to them that they keep some in their mouths to enjoy its flavor.
20:14  But in their stomachs the food turns bitter, as bitter as any poison could be.
20:15  The wicked vomit up the wealth they stole; God takes it back, even out of their stomachs.
20:16  What the evil people swallow is like poison; it kills them like the bite of a deadly snake.
20:17  They will not live to see rivers of olive oil or streams that flow with milk and honey.
20:18  They will have to give up all they have worked for; they will have no chance to enjoy their wealth,
20:19  because they oppressed and neglected the poor and seized houses someone else had built.
20:20  Their greed is never satisfied.
20:21  When they eat, there is nothing left over, but now their prosperity comes to an end.
20:22  At the height of their success all the weight of misery will crush them.
20:23  Let them eat all they want! God will punish them in fury and anger.
20:24  When they try to escape from an iron sword, a bronze bow will shoot them down.
20:25  Arrows stick through their bodies; the shiny points drip with their blood, and terror grips their hearts.
20:26  Everything they have saved is destroyed; a fire not lit by human hands burns them and all their family.
20:27  Heaven reveals their sin, and the earth gives testimony against them.
20:28  All their wealth will be destroyed in the flood of God's anger.
20:29  This is the fate of wicked people, the fate that God assigns to them.