21:1 Then Job answered:
21:2 “Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you offer me.
21:3 Bear with me and I will speak, and after I have spoken you may mock.
21:4 Is my complaint against a man? If so, why should I not be impatient?
21:5 Look at me and be appalled; put your hands over your mouths.
21:6 For, when I think about this, I am terrified and my body feels a shudder.
21:7 “Why do the wicked go on living, grow old, even increase in power?
21:8 Their children are firmly established in their presence, their offspring before their eyes.
21:9 Their houses are safe and without fear; and no rod of punishment from God is upon them.
21:10 Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and do not miscarry.
21:11 They allow their children to run like a flock; their little ones dance about.
21:12 They sing to the accompaniment of tambourine and harp, and make merry to the sound of the flute.
21:13 They live out their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.
21:14 So they say to God, ‘Turn away from us! We do not want to know your ways.
21:15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain if we were to pray to him?’
21:16 But their prosperity is not their own doing. The counsel of the wicked is far from me!
21:17 “How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished? How often does their misfortune come upon them? How often does God apportion pain to them in his anger?