Family Prayer
in the Early Evening

² “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge,
    and fill his belly with the east wind?
³ Should he argue in unprofitable talk,
    or in words with which he can do no good?
⁴ But you are doing away with the fear of God
    and hindering meditation before God.
⁵ For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
    and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
⁶ Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
    your own lips testify against you.

⁷ “Are you the first man who was born?
    Or were you brought forth before the hills?
⁸ Have you listened in the council of God?
    And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
⁹ What do you know that we do not know?
    What do you understand that is not clear to us?
¹⁰ Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
    older than your father.
¹¹ Are the comforts of God too small for you,
    or the word that deals gently with you?
¹² Why does your heart carry you away,
    and why do your eyes flash,
¹³ that you turn your spirit against God
    and bring such words out of your mouth?
¹⁴ What is man, that he can be pure?
    Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?
¹⁵ Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones,
    and the heavens are not pure in his sight;
¹⁶ how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
    a man who drinks injustice like water!

¹⁷ “I will show you; hear me,
    and what I have seen I will declare
¹⁸ (what wise men have told,
    without hiding it from their fathers,
¹⁹ to whom alone the land was given,
    and no stranger passed among them).
²⁰ The wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
    through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
²¹ Dreadful sounds are in his ears;
    in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.
²² He does not believe that he will return out of darkness,
    and he is marked for the sword.
²³ He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
    He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;
²⁴ distress and anguish terrify him;
    they prevail against him, like a king ready for battle.
²⁵ Because he has stretched out his hand against God
    and defies the Almighty,
²⁶ running stubbornly against him
    with a thickly bossed shield;
²⁷ because he has covered his face with his fat
    and gathered fat upon his waist
²⁸ and has lived in desolate cities,
    in houses that none should inhabit,
    which were ready to become heaps of ruins;
²⁹ he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure,
    nor will his possessions spread over the earth;
³⁰ he will not depart from darkness;
    the flame will dry up his shoots,
    and by the breath of his mouth he will depart.
³¹ Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself,
    for emptiness will be his payment.
³² It will be paid in full before his time,
    and his branch will not be green.
³³ He will shake off his unripe grape like the vine,
    and cast off his blossom like the olive tree.
³⁴ For the company of the godless is barren,
    and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
³⁵ They conceive trouble and give birth to evil,
    and their womb prepares deceit.”