1Then Job answered and said,

2“Listen carefully to my words,
and let this be the comfort you offer to me.

3Put up with me, and I also will speak;
after I have spoken, mock on.

4As for me, is my complaint to a person?
Why should I not be impatient?

5Look at me and be astonished,
and lay your hand upon your mouth.

6When I think about my sufferings, I am terrified,
and trembling seizes my body.

7Why do wicked people continue to live,
become old, and grow mighty in power?

8Their descendants are established with them in their sight,
and their offspring are established before their eyes.

9Their houses are safe from fear;
neither is the rod of God on them.

10Their bull breeds; it does not fail to do so;
their cow gives birth and does not lose her calf prematurely.

11They send out their little ones like a flock,
and their children dance.

12They sing to the tambourine and harp
and rejoice with the music of the flute.

13They spend their days in prosperity,
and they go down quietly to Sheol.

14They say to God, 'Depart from us
for we do not wish any knowledge of your ways.

15What is the Almighty, that we should worship him?
What advantage would we get if we prayed to him?'

16See, is not their prosperity in their own hands?
I have nothing to do with the advice of wicked people.

17How often is it that the lamp of wicked people is put out,
or that their calamity comes upon them?
How often does it happen that God distributes sorrows to them in his anger?

18How often is it that they become like stubble before the wind
or like chaff that the storm carries away?

19You say, 'God lays up one's guilt for his children to pay.'
Let him pay it himself, so that he might know his guilt.

20Let his eyes see his own destruction,
and let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

21For what does he care about his family after him
when the number of his months is cut off?

22Can anyone teach God knowledge
since he judges even those who are high?

23One man dies in his full strength,
being completely quiet and at ease.

24His body is full of milk,
and the marrow of his bones is moist.

25Another man dies in bitterness of soul,
one who has never experienced anything good.

26They lie down alike in the dust;
the worms cover them both.

27See, I know your thoughts,
and the ways in which you wish to wrong me.

28For you say, 'Where now is the house of the prince?
Where is the tent in which the wicked man once lived?'

29Have you never asked traveling people?
Do you not know the evidence they can tell,

30that the wicked man is kept from the day of calamity,
and that he is led away from the day of wrath?

31Who will condemn the wicked man's way to his face?
Who will repay him for what he has done?

32Yet he will be borne to the grave;
men will keep watch over his tomb.

33The clods of the valley will be sweet to him;
all people will follow after him,
as there were innumerable people before him.

34How then do you comfort me with nonsense,
since in your answers there is nothing but falsehood?”