Job 21:7–18

⁷“Why do the wicked prosper,

growing old and powerful?

⁸They live to see their children grow up and settle down,

and they enjoy their grandchildren.

⁹Their homes are safe from every fear,

and God does not punish them.

¹⁰Their bulls never fail to breed.

Their cows bear calves and never miscarry.

¹¹They let their children frisk about like lambs.

Their little ones skip and dance.

¹²They sing with tambourine and harp.

They celebrate to the sound of the flute.

¹³They spend their days in prosperity,

then go down to the grave in peace.

¹⁴And yet they say to God, ‘Go away.

We want no part of you and your ways.

¹⁵Who is the Almighty, and why should we obey him?

What good will it do us to pray?’

¹⁶(They think their prosperity is of their own doing,

but I will have nothing to do with that kind of thinking.)

¹⁷“Yet the light of the wicked never seems to be extinguished.

Do they ever have trouble?

Does God distribute sorrows to them in anger?

¹⁸Are they driven before the wind like straw?

Are they carried away by the storm like chaff?

Not at all!