⁴ “Is my complaint^(A) directed to a human being?
    Why should I not be impatient?^(B)
5 Look at me and be appalled;
    clap your hand over your mouth.^(C)
6 When I think about this, I am terrified;^(D)
    trembling seizes my body.^(E)
7 Why do the wicked live on,
    growing old and increasing in power?^(F)
8 They see their children established around them,
    their offspring before their eyes.^(G)
9 Their homes are safe and free from fear;^(H)
    the rod of God is not on them.^(I)
10 Their bulls never fail to breed;
    their cows calve and do not miscarry.^(J)
11 They send forth their children as a flock;^(K)
    their little ones dance about.
¹² They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre;^(L)
    they make merry to the sound of the pipe.^(M)
13 They spend their years in prosperity^(N)
    and go down to the grave^(O) in peace.^[a](P)
14 Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone!^(Q)
    We have no desire to know your ways.^(R)
15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
    What would we gain by praying to him?’^(S)
16 But their prosperity is not in their own hands,
    so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked.^(T)

¹⁷ “Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out?^(U)
    How often does calamity^(V) come upon them,
    the fate God allots in his anger?^(W)
18 How often are they like straw before the wind,
    like chaff^(X) swept away^(Y) by a gale?^(Z)