Job 21

¹Then Job answered:

²“Listen carefully to my words; let this be your consolation to me.

³Bear with me while I speak; then, after I have spoken, you may go on mocking.

⁴Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?

⁵Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth.

⁶When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror.

⁷Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?

⁸Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes.

⁹Their homes are safe from fear; no rod of punishment from God is upon them.

¹⁰Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry.

¹¹They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,

¹²singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry at the sound of the flute.

¹³They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace.

¹⁴Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways.

¹⁵Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’

¹⁶Still, their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.