⁹ For he says, ‘There is no profit
    in trying to please God.’^(A)

³ Yet you ask him, ‘What profit is it to me,^[a]
    and what do I gain by not sinning?’^(A)

¹⁴ Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone!^(A)
    We have no desire to know your ways.^(B)
15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
    What would we gain by praying to him?’^(C)
16 But their prosperity is not in their own hands,
    so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked.^(D)

²² It is all the same; that is why I say,
    ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’^(A)
23 When a scourge^(B) brings sudden death,
    he mocks the despair of the innocent.^(C)

⁴ Take delight^(A) in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.^(B)

¹⁰ Will they find delight in the Almighty?^(A)
    Will they call on God at all times?

³⁰ Even if I washed myself with soap^(A)
    and my hands^(B) with cleansing powder,^(C)
31 you would plunge me into a slime pit^(D)
    so that even my clothes would detest me.^(E)

¹⁷ They said to God, ‘Leave us alone!
    What can the Almighty do to us?’^(A)