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21:1  Then Job answered:
21:2  “Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation.
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 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, 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 does not cast her calf.
21:11  They send forth their little ones 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 thy 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 sons.’ Let him recompense it to themselves, 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 that are on high?
21:23  One dies in full prosperity, being wholly at ease and secure,
21:24  his body full of fat 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  “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 dwelt?’
21:29  Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony
21:30  that the wicked 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 requites him for what he has done?
21:32  When he is borne to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb.
21:33  The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all men follow 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.”