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21Then Job answered:

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

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