[1] Then Job answered:
[2] “Listen carefully to my words; let this be your consolation to me.
[3] Bear with me while I speak; then, after I have spoken, you may go on mocking.
[4] Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?
[5] Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth.
[6] When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror.
[7] Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?
[8] Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes.
[9] Their homes are safe from fear; no rod of punishment from God is upon them.
[10] Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry.
[11] They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,
[12] singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry 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! For we have no desire to know Your ways.
[15] Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’
[16] Still, their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.
[17] How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?
[18] Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?
[19] It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.
[20] Let his eyes see his own destruction; let him drink for himself the wrath of the Almighty.
[21] For what does he care about his household after him, when the number of his months has run out?
[22] Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges those on high?
[23] One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease.
[24] His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.
[25] Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity.
[26] But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.
[27] Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.
[28] For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’
[29] Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their reports?
[30] Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath.
[31] Who denounces his behavior to his face? Who repays him for what he has done?
[32] He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.
[33] The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number.
[34] So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.”