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¹ Then Job answered:² "Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation.³ Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.⁴ As for me, is my complaint against man? 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, 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 does not cast her calf.¹¹ They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.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, 'Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of thy ways.¹⁵ What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?'¹⁶ Behold, is not their prosperity 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 upon them? That God distributes pains in his anger?¹⁸ That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?¹⁹ You say, 'God stores up their iniquity for their sons.' Let him recompense it to themselves, 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 houses 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 body full of fat 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 "Behold, 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 dwelt?'²⁹ Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony³⁰ that the wicked man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath?³¹ Who declares his way to his face, and who requites him for what he has done?³² When he is borne to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb.³³ The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all men follow after him, and those who go before him are innumerable.³⁴ How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood."