1 Then Job answered:
2 Pay close attention to my words; let this be the consolation you offer.
3 Bear with me while I speak; then after I have spoken, you may continue mocking.
4 As for me, is my complaint against a man ? Then why shouldn’t I be impatient?
5 Look at me and shudder; put your hand over your mouth.
6 When I think about it, I am terrified and my body trembles in horror.
7 Why do the wicked continue to live, growing old and becoming powerful ?
8 Their children are established while they are still alive , and their descendants, before their eyes.
9 Their homes are secure and free of fear; no rod from God strikes them.
10 Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and do not miscarry.
11 They let their little ones run around like lambs; their children skip about,
12 singing to the tambourine and lyre and rejoicing at the sound of the flute.
13 They spend their days in prosperity and go down to •Sheol in peace.
14 Yet they say to God: “Leave us alone ! We don’t want to know Your ways.
15 Who is the •Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what will we gain by pleading with Him? ”
16 But their prosperity is not of their own doing. The counsel of the wicked is far from me!
17 How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come on them? Does He apportion destruction in His anger?
18 Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff a storm sweeps away?
19 God reserves a person’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the person himself, so that he may know it.
20 Let his own eyes see his demise; let him drink from the Almighty’s wrath!
