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Job Replies: The Wicked Often Go Unpunished

21Then Job answered:
² ‘Listen carefully to my words,
   and let this be your consolation.
³ Bear with me, and I will speak;
   then after I have spoken, mock on.
⁴ As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals?
   Why should I not be impatient?
⁵ Look at me, and be appalled,
   and lay your hand upon your mouth.
⁶ When I think of it I am dismayed,
   and shuddering seizes my flesh.
⁷ Why do the wicked live on,
   reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
⁸ Their children are established in their presence,
   and their offspring before their eyes.
⁹ Their houses are safe from fear,
   and no rod of God is upon them.
¹⁰ Their bull breeds without fail;
   their cow calves and never miscarries.
¹¹ They send out their little ones like a flock,
   and their children dance around.
¹² They sing to the tambourine and the lyre,
   and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
¹³ They spend their days in prosperity,
   and in peace they go down to Sheol.
¹⁴ They say to God, “Leave us alone!
   We do not desire to know your ways.
¹⁵ What is the Almighty,^* that we should serve him?
   And what profit do we get if we pray to him?”
¹⁶ Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?^*
   The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.

¹⁷ ‘How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
   How often does calamity come upon them?
   How often does God^* distribute pains in his anger?
¹⁸ How often are they like straw before the wind,
   and like chaff that the storm carries away?
¹⁹ You say, “God stores up their iniquity for their children.”
   Let it be paid back to them, so that they may know it.
²⁰ Let their own eyes see their destruction,
   and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.^*
21 For what do they care for their household after them,
   when the number of their months is cut off?
²² Will any teach God knowledge,
   seeing that he judges those that are on high?
²³ One dies in full prosperity,
   being wholly at ease and secure,
²⁴ his loins full of milk
   and the marrow of his bones moist.
²⁵ Another dies in bitterness of soul,
   never having tasted of good.
²⁶ They lie down alike in the dust,
   and the worms cover them.

²⁷ ‘Oh, I know your thoughts,
   and your schemes to wrong me.
²⁸ For you say, “Where is the house of the prince?
   Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?”
²⁹ Have you not asked those who travel the roads,
   and do you not accept their testimony,
³⁰ that the wicked are spared on the day of calamity,
   and are rescued on the day of wrath?
³¹ Who declares their way to their face,
   and who repays them for what they have done?
³² When they are carried to the grave,
   a watch is kept over their tomb.
³³ The clods of the valley are sweet to them;
   everyone will follow after,
   and those who went before are innumerable.
³⁴ How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?
   There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.’