Job 21:1-34 ESV

[1] Then Job answered and said: [2] "Keep listening to my words, and let this be your comfort. [3] Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on. [4] As for me, is my complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient? [5] Look at me and be appalled, and lay your hand over your mouth. [6] When I remember, I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh. [7] Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? [8] Their offspring are established in their presence, and their descendants before their eyes. [9] Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them. [10] Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and does not miscarry. [11] They send out their little boys like a flock, and their children dance. [12] They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and rejoice to the sound of the pipe. [13] They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol. [14] They say to God, 'Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of your ways. [15] What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?' [16] Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? The counsel of the wicked is far from me. [17] "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God distributes pains in his anger? [18] That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away? [19] You say, 'God stores up their iniquity for their children.' Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it. [20] Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty. [21] For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off? [22] Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those who are on high? [23] One dies in his full vigor, being wholly at ease and secure, [24] his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist. [25] Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity. [26] They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them. [27] "Behold, I know your thoughts and your schemes to wrong me. [28] For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?' [29] Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony [30] that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath? [31] Who declares his way to his face, and who repays him for what he has done? [32] When he is carried to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb. [33] The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all mankind follows after him, and those who go before him are innumerable. [34] How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood."