16
Even when righteous people are dead and gone, they put to shame the wicked people who live on after them. In their old age the wicked will be disgraced by young people who have already achieved perfection.
17
The wise may die young, but the wicked will never understand that this is the Lord's way of taking them off to safety.
18
They make light of a wise person's death, but the Lord will soon be laughing at them. When they die, they will not be given an honorable burial. Even the dead will hold them in scorn and disgust forever.
19
God will throw them to the ground and make them speechless. Like buildings shaken from their foundations, they will be reduced to piles of ruins. They will be in torment. People will soon forget all about them.
20
They will come in fear to the Judgment, where their sins will be counted; they will stand condemned by their own lawless actions.