21:2 ‘Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation.
21:3 Bear with me, and I will speak; then after I have spoken, mock on.
21:4 As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals? Why should I not be impatient?
21:5 Look at me, and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth.
21:6 When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.
21:7 Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
21:8 Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring 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 never miscarries.
21:11 They send out their little ones like a flock, and their children dance around.
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, “Leave us alone! We do not desire to know 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 Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement? The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.
21:17 ‘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?
21:18 How often are they 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 it be paid back to them, so 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 household after them, when the number of their months is cut off?
21:22 Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those that are on high?
21:23 One dies in full prosperity, being wholly at ease and secure,
21:24 his loins full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist.
21:25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of good.
21:26 They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.
21:27 ‘Oh, 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 wicked are spared on the day of calamity, and are rescued on the day of wrath?
21:31 Who declares their way to their face, and who repays them for what they have done?
21:32 When they are carried to the grave, a watch is kept over their tomb.
21:33 The clods of the valley are sweet to them; everyone will follow after, and those who went before are innumerable.
21:34 How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.’
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