Job 21:7–18

⁷Why do the wicked live on,

reach old age, and grow mighty in power?^*

⁸Their children are established in their presence

and their offspring before their eyes.^*

⁹Their houses are safe from fear,

and no rod of God is upon them.^*

¹⁰Their bull breeds without fail;

their cow calves and never miscarries.^*

¹¹They send out their little ones like a flock,

and their children dance around.

¹²They sing to the tambourine and the lyre

and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.^*

¹³They spend their days in prosperity,

and in peace they go down to Sheol.^*

¹⁴They say to God, ‘Leave us alone!

We do not desire to know your ways.^*

¹⁵What is the Almighty,^e that we should serve him?

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

¹⁶Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?^f

The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.^*

¹⁷“How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?

How often does calamity come upon them?

How often does God^g distribute pains in his anger?^*

¹⁸How often are they like straw before the wind

and like chaff that the storm carries away?^*