[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 out 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 out 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?”