[21:1] Then Job answered and said:
[21:2] “Keep listening to my words, and let this be your comfort.
[21:3] Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.
[21:4] As for me, is my complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient?
[21:5] Look at me and be appalled, and lay your hand over your mouth.
[21:6] When I remember, I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.
[21:7] Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
[21:8] Their offspring are established in their presence, and their descendants before their eyes.
[21:9] Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them.
[21:10] Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and does not miscarry.
[21:11] They send out their little boys like a flock, and their children dance.
[21:12] They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
[21:13] They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.
[21:14] They say to God, ‘Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.
[21:15] What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’
[21:16] Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
[21:17] “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?
[21:18] That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?
[21:19] You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’ Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.
[21:20] Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
[21:21] For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off?
[21:22] Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those who are on high?
[21:23] One dies in his full vigor, being wholly at ease and secure,
[21:24] his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist.
[21:25] Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity.
[21:26] They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.
[21:27] “Behold, I know your thoughts and your schemes to wrong me.
[21:28] For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
[21:29] Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony
[21:30] that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath?
[21:31] Who declares his way to his face, and who repays him for what he has done?
[21:32] When he is carried to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb.
[21:33] The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all mankind follows after him, and those who go before him are innumerable.
[21:34] How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”