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Then Job replied:
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“Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you give me.
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Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.
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“Is my complaint directed to a human being? Why should I not be impatient?
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Look at me and be appalled; clap your hand over your mouth.
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When I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body.
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Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?
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They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes.
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Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not on them.
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Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry.
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They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about.
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They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre; they make merry to the sound of the pipe.
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They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.
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Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways.
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Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?’
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But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked.
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“Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in his anger?
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How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?
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It is said, ‘God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.’ Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!
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Let their own eyes see their destruction; let them drink the cup of the wrath of the Almighty.
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For what do they care about the families they leave behind when their allotted months come to an end?
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“Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he judges even the highest?
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One person dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease,
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well nourished in body, bones rich with marrow.
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Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good.
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Side by side they lie in the dust, and worms cover them both.
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“I know full well what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me.
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You say, ‘Where now is the house of the great, the tents where the wicked lived?’
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Have you never questioned those who travel? Have you paid no regard to their accounts -
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that the wicked are spared from the day of calamity, that they are delivered from the day of wrath?
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Who denounces their conduct to their face? Who repays them for what they have done?
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They are carried to the grave, and watch is kept over their tombs.
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The soil in the valley is sweet to them; everyone follows after them, and a countless throng goes before them.
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“So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!”
