Read the Bible

¹ Then Iyov responded:

² "Listen carefully to my words;
let this be the comfort you give me.
³ Bear with me as I speak;
then, after I have spoken, you can go on mocking.

⁴ "As for me, is my complaint merely to other people?
Don't I have grounds for being short-tempered?
⁵ Look at me, and be appalled;
cover your mouth with your hand!
⁶ Whenever I recall it, I am in shock;
my whole body shudders.

⁷ "Why do the wicked go on living,
grow old and keep increasing their power?
⁸ They see their children settled with them,
their posterity assured.
⁹ Their houses are safe, with nothing to fear;
God's rod is not on them.
¹⁰ Their bulls are fertile without fail,
their cows get pregnant and don't miscarry.
¹¹ They produce flocks of babies,
and their children dance around.
¹² They sing with tambourines and lyres
and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
¹³ They spend their days in prosperity
and go down to the grave in peace.

¹⁴ "Yet to God they said, ‘Leave us alone!
We don't want to know about your ways.
¹⁵ What is Shaddai, that we should serve him?
What do we gain if we pray to him?'
¹⁶ Isn't their prosperity already theirs?
The plans of the wicked are far from me.

¹⁷ "How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
How often does their calamity come upon them?
How often does [God] deal out pain in his anger,
¹⁸ to make them like straw in the wind,
like chaff carried off by a storm?
¹⁹ God lays up for their children
[the punishment for their] iniquity.
He should lay it on [the wicked] themselves,
so that they can feel it!
²⁰ Let their own eyes see their own destruction
and themselves drink the wrath of Shaddai.
²¹ What joy can they have in their family after them,
given that their months are numbered?

²² "Can anyone teach God knowledge?
After all, he judges those who are on high.
²³ One person dies in his full strength,
completely at ease and content;
²⁴ his pails are full of milk,
and the marrow in his bones is moist.
²⁵ Another dies with embittered heart,
never having tasted happiness.
²⁶ They lie down alike in the dust,
and the worm covers them both.

²⁷ "Look, I know what you are thinking
and your plans to do me wrong.
²⁸ You ask, ‘Where is the great man's house?
Where is the tent where the wicked once lived?'
²⁹ Haven't you ever questioned travelers?
Don't you accept their testimony
³⁰ that the evil man is saved on the day of disaster,
rescued on the day of wrath?
³¹ So who will confront him with his ways?
Who will repay him for what he has done?
³² For he is carried off to the grave,
people keep watch over his tomb,
³³ the clods of the valley are sweet to him;
so everyone follows his example,
just as before him were countless others.

³⁴ "Why offer me such meaningless comfort?
Of your answers, only the perfidy remains."