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Job: God Will Punish the Wicked

¹ Then Job answered:² “Listen carefully to my words; let this be your consolation to me.³ Bear with me while I speak; then after I have spoken, you may go on mocking.⁴ Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?⁵ Look at me and be astonished; put your hand over your mouth.⁶ When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror.

⁷ Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?⁸ Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes.⁹ Their homes are safe from fear; the rod of God is not upon them.¹⁰ Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and do not miscarry.¹¹ They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,¹² singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry at the sound of the flute.¹³ They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace^(a).¹⁴ Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways.¹⁵ Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’¹⁶ Yet their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.

¹⁷ How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?¹⁸ Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?¹⁹ It is said that God lays up one's punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so that he may know it.²⁰ Let his own eyes see his destruction; let him drink for himself the wrath of the Almighty.²¹ For what does he care about his household after him, when the number of his months has run out?²² Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges those on high?²³ One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease.²⁴ His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.²⁵ Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity.²⁶ But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.

²⁷ Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.²⁸ For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’²⁹ Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their reports?³⁰ Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath.³¹ Who will denounce his behavior to his face? Who will repay him for what he has done?³² He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.³³ The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number.³⁴ So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.”