² “Listen diligently to my speech.
    Let this be your consolation.
³ Allow me, and I also will speak;
    After I have spoken, mock on.
⁴ As for me, is my complaint to man?
    Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
⁵ Look at me, and be astonished.
    Lay your hand on your mouth.
⁶ When I remember, I am troubled.
    Horror takes hold of my flesh.

⁷ “Why do the wicked live,
    become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
⁸ Their child is established with them in their sight,
    their offspring before their eyes.
⁹ Their houses are safe from fear,
    neither is the rod of God upon them.
¹⁰ Their bulls breed without fail.
    Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.
¹¹ They send out their little ones like a flock.
    Their children dance.
¹² They sing to the tambourine and harp,
    and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
¹³ They spend their days in prosperity.
    In an instant they go down to Sheol.^[a]
14 They tell God, ‘Depart from us,
    for we don’t want to know about your ways.
¹⁵ What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
    What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’
¹⁶ Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand.
    The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

¹⁷ “How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out,
    that their calamity comes on them,
    that God distributes sorrows in his anger?
¹⁸ How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind,
    as chaff that the storm carries away?
¹⁹ You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’
    Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
²⁰ Let his own eyes see his destruction.
    Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
²¹ For what does he care for his house after him,
    when the number of his months is cut off?

²² “Shall any teach God knowledge,
    since he judges those who are high?
²³ One dies in his full strength,
    being wholly at ease and quiet.
²⁴ His pails are full of milk.
    The marrow of his bones is moistened.
²⁵ Another dies in bitterness of soul,
    and never tastes of good.
²⁶ They lie down alike in the dust.
    The worm covers them.

²⁷ “Behold, I know your thoughts,
    the plans with which you would wrong me.
²⁸ For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?
    Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
²⁹ Haven’t you asked wayfaring men?
    Don’t you know their evidences,
³⁰ that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity,
    That they are led out to the day of wrath?
³¹ Who will declare his way to his face?
    Who will repay him what he has done?
³² Yet he will be borne to the grave.
    Men will keep watch over the tomb.
³³ The clods of the valley will be sweet to him.
    All men will draw after him,
    as there were innumerable before him.
³⁴ So how can you comfort me with nonsense,
    because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”