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Job Replies: The Wicked Often Go Unpunished

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Then Job answered:

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“Listen carefully to my words,

and let this be your consolation.

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Bear with me, and I will speak;

then after I have spoken, mock on.

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As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals?

Why should I not be impatient?

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Look at me, and be appalled,

and lay your hand upon your mouth.

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When I think of it I am dismayed,

and shuddering seizes my flesh.

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Why do the wicked live on,

reach old age, and grow mighty in power?

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Their children are established in their presence,

and their offspring before their eyes.

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Their houses are safe from fear,

and no rod of God is upon them.

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Their bull breeds without fail;

their cow calves and never miscarries.

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They send out their little ones like a flock,

and their children dance around.

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They sing to the tambourine and the lyre,

and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

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They spend their days in prosperity,

and in peace they go down to Sheol.

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They say to God, ‘Leave us alone!

We do not desire to know your ways.

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What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?

And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’

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Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?

The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.

 

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“How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?

How often does calamity come upon them?

How often does God distribute pains in his anger?

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How often are they like straw before the wind,

and like chaff that the storm carries away?

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You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’

Let it be paid back to them, so that they may know it.

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Let their own eyes see their destruction,

and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

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For what do they care for their household after them,

when the number of their months is cut off?

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Will any teach God knowledge,

seeing that he judges those that are on high?

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One dies in full prosperity,

being wholly at ease and secure,

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his loins full of milk

and the marrow of his bones moist.

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Another dies in bitterness of soul,

never having tasted of good.

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They lie down alike in the dust,

and the worms cover them.

 

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“Oh, I know your thoughts,

and your schemes to wrong me.

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For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?

Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’

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Have you not asked those who travel the roads,

and do you not accept their testimony,

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that the wicked are spared in the day of calamity,

and are rescued in the day of wrath?

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Who declares their way to their face,

and who repays them for what they have done?

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When they are carried to the grave,

a watch is kept over their tomb.

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The clods of the valley are sweet to them;

everyone will follow after,

and those who went before are innumerable.

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How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?

There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”