2Listen diligently to my speech, and let this be your consolation.

3Suffer me that I may speak; and after I have spoken, then mock on.

4I will utter my complaint to men, why my spirit is distressed.

5Return to me, and be astonished, and lay your hand upon your mouth.

6Even when I think of it, I tremble, and terror takes hold of my flesh.

7Why do the ungodly live, and why are the mighty in power full of years?

8Their descendants are established in their sight with them, and their children before their eyes.

9Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.

10Their bull breeds, and fails not; their cow calves, and does not cast her calf.

11Their children stand firm like a flock, and their boys dance.

12They take the timbrels and harps, and rejoice at the sound of singing.

13They spend their days in prosperity, and then suddenly go down to Sheol.

14They say to God, Depart from us; for we do not desire to know thy ways.

15Moreover, they say, Who is God, that we should serve him? And what would we gain, that we should pray to him?

16Lo, they have no power over their prosperity; the counsel of the ungodly is far from me.

17How often is it that the wicked are left without an heir! how often their destruction comes upon them! God distributes sorrows in his anger.

18They are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away.

19God reserves man's iniquity for his children; he pays it back to him, and he shall know it.

20His eyes shall see his destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

21For what pleasure has he in his house after him, when a portion of his years shall be reserved for his posterity?

22Shall any teach God knowledge, seeing it is he who judges the proud?

23One dies in his full strength, sound of body, being wholly confident, and at ease.

24His body is full of fat, and his bones are filled with marrow.

25And another dies in the bitterness of his soul, never having tasted prosperity.

26They shall lie down in the dust, and the worms shall cover them.

27Behold, I know your thoughts, and the devices which you wrongfully imagine against me.

28For you say. Where is the house of the righteous? And where is the place in which the wicked has pitched his tent?

29Have you not asked those who pass by the way? And do you not recognize their tokens?

30For the evil man is reserved for the day of destruction, he shall be remembered in the day of wrath.

31Who can show him the way? And who shall repay him for what he has done?

32Yet he shall be brought to the grave, he is reserved for misfortune.

33The depths of the valley shall swallow him, and many shall be drawn in after him, even as there are innumerable ahead of him.

34How then can you comfort me in vain, seeing that your abominable answers are multiplied before me?