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Job answered:
2 “Listen carefully to my words,
and let this be your consolation.
3 Bear with me while I speak,
and after I have spoken, mock on.
4 “As for me, is my complaint directed toward a man?
Why should I not be impatient?
5 Look at me and be astonished;
put your hand over your mouth.
6 When I think of this, I am terrified,
and trembling takes hold of my flesh.
7 Why do the wicked live on, become old,
and grow mighty in power?
8 Their children become established while they remain alive,
and their offspring before their eyes.
9 Their houses are safe from fear,
neither is the rod of God upon them.
10 Their bulls never fail to breed,
their cows calf and do not miscarry.
11 They send out their children like a flock,
and their children dance about.
12 They sing to the tambourine and harp,
and rejoice to the sound of the flute.
13 They spend their days in prosperity,
and go down to Sheol in peace.
14 Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone!
We do not desire the knowledge of Your ways.
15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
What do we profit, if we pray to him?’
16 But their prosperity is not in their own hands.
The counsel of the wicked is far from me!
17 “How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
How often does their destruction come upon them?
Does God apportion sorrow in His anger?
18 Are they like straw before the wind,
and like chaff which the storm carries away?
19 You say, ‘God lays up a man’s iniquity for his children’.
Let God repay the person, so that he may know it.
20 Let his own eyes see his destruction,
and let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
21 For what does he care for his household after him,
when his allocation of months ends?
22 “Can anyone teach God knowledge,
seeing He judges those who are exalted.
23 One man dies in full vigour,
being wholly at ease and satisfied.
24 His body is well fed,
and the marrow of his bones is moist.
25 Another man dies in bitterness of soul,
never having tasted of anything good.
26 They alike lie down in the dust,
and worms cover them.
27 “Look, I know what you are thinking,
and the schemes you have to wrong me with.
28 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the nobleman’?
and ‘Where are the tents the wicked lived in?’
29 Have you not consulted those who travel the roads?
Do you not accept their reports,
30 indeed, the wicked are spared in the day of destruction,
they are rescued in the day of wrath.
31 Who will condemn his way to his face,
and who will repay him for what he has done?
32 He is carried to the grave,
and a watch is kept at his tomb.
33 The clods of the valley are sweet to him,
and all men will follow after him,
as countless have gone before him.
34 “So how then can you console me with your futile nonsense?
There is nothing in your answers but falsehood.”