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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. 1
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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, 2
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 3 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 4 before them.
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"So how can you console me with your nonsense?
Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!"