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21:1  Then Job replied:
21:2  ‘Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you give me.
21:3  Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.
21:4  ‘Is my complaint directed to a human being? Why should I not be impatient?
21:5  Look at me and be appalled; clap your hand over your mouth.
21:6  When I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body.
21:7  Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?
21:8  They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes.
21:9  Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not on them.
21:10  Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry.
21:11  They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about.
21:12  They sing to the music of tambourine and lyre; they make merry to the sound of the pipe.
21:13  They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.
21:14  Yet they say to God, “Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways.
21:15  Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?”
21:16  But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked.
21:17  ‘Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in his anger?
21:18  How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?
21:19  It is said, “God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.” Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!
21:20  Let their own eyes see their destruction; let them drink the cup of the wrath of the Almighty.
21:21  For what do they care about the families they leave behind when their allotted months come to an end?
21:22  ‘Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he judges even the highest?
21:23  One person dies in full vigour, completely secure and at ease,
21:24  well nourished in body, bones rich with marrow.
21:25  Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good.
21:26  Side by side they lie in the dust, and worms cover them both.
21:27  ‘I know full well what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me.
21:28  You say, “Where now is the house of the great, the tents where the wicked lived?”
21:29  Have you never questioned those who travel? Have you paid no regard to their accounts –
21:30  that the wicked are spared from the day of calamity, that they are delivered from the day of wrath?
21:31  Who denounces their conduct to their face? Who repays them for what they have done?
21:32  They are carried to the grave, and watch is kept over their tombs.
21:33  The soil in the valley is sweet to them; everyone follows after them, and a countless throng goes before them.
21:34  ‘So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!’