| 1 | Then Job answered, |
| 2 | "Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation. |
| 3 | Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on. |
| 4 | As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn't I be impatient? |
| 5 | Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth. |
| 6 | When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh. |
| 7 | "Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power? |
| 8 | Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes. |
| 9 | Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. |
| 10 | Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don't miscarry. |
| 11 | They send forth their little ones like a flock. Their children dance. |
| 12 | They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe. |
| 13 | They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol . |
| 14 | They tell God, 'Depart from us, for we don't want to know about your ways. |
| 15 | What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?' |
| 16 | Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me. |
| 17 | "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger? |
| 18 | How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away? |
| 19 | You say, 'God lays up his iniquity for his children.' Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it. |
| 20 | Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. |
| 21 | For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off? |
| 22 | "Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high? |
| 23 | One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. |
| 24 | His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened. |
| 25 | Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good. |
| 26 | They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them. |
| 27 | "Behold, I know your thoughts, the devices with which you would wrong me. |
| 28 | For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?' |
| 29 | Haven't you asked wayfaring men? Don't you know their evidences, |
| 30 | that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led forth to the day of wrath? |
| 31 | Who shall declare his way to his face? Who shall repay him what he has done? |
| 32 | Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb. |
| 33 | The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall draw after him, as there were innumerable before him. |
| 34 | So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?" |
