Job Replies: The Wicked Do Prosper
Then Job answered and said,
“Listen, yes, listen to my speech. Let this be the consolation you give me.
Bear with me and I will speak, then after I have spoken, mock on.
“As for me, is my complaint to a man? Why should I not be impatient?
Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
Why do the wicked keep on living, becoming old, and also yes, and grow mighty in power?
Their descendants are established with them before their face, and their offspring before their eyes.
Their houses are safe from fear, nor is the rod of God upon them.
Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve and do not miscarry.
They send forth their little boys like a flock. Their children dance.
They sing to the tambourine and harp and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
They spend their days in prosperity, and go down to Sheol in peace.
Yet they say to God, ‘Depart from us, for we have no desire to know your ways.
Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit will we have if we pray to him?’
But behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, or that calamity comes upon them, or pain that God distributes in his anger?
How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ Let him repay the sinner so that he will know it.
Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
“Can anyone teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are on high?
One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.
Another dies in bitterness of soul and never tastes of good.
They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
“Behold, I know your thoughts, and the schemes by which you would wrong me.
For you say, ‘Where is the house of the noble? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
Have you not asked wayfaring men? Do you not know their testimony,
that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, that they are led forth to the day of wrath?
Who would declare his way to his face? Who would repay him what he has done?
Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men will keep watch over the tomb.
The clods of the valley will be sweet to him. All men will draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.
“So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”