4-16 “It’s not you I’m complaining to—it’s God.
    Is it any wonder I’m getting fed up with his silence?
Take a good look at me. Aren’t you appalled by what’s happened?
    No! Don’t say anything. I can do without your comments.
When I look back, I go into shock,
    my body is racked with spasms.
Why do the wicked have it so good,
    live to a ripe old age and get rich?
They get to see their children succeed,
    get to watch and enjoy their grandchildren.
Their homes are peaceful and free from fear;
    they never experience God’s disciplining rod.
Their bulls breed with great vigor
    and their cows calve without fail.
They send their children out to play
    and watch them frolic like spring lambs.
They make music with fiddles and flutes,
    have good times singing and dancing.
They have a long life on easy street,
    and die painlessly in their sleep.
They say to God, ‘Get lost!
    We’ve no interest in you or your ways.
Why should we have dealings with God Almighty?
    What’s there in it for us?’
But they’re wrong, dead wrong—they’re not gods.
    It’s beyond me how they can carry on like this!

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13 They spend their years in prosperity(A)
    and go down to the grave(B) in peace.[a](C)
14 Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone!(D)
    We have no desire to know your ways.(E)
15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
    What would we gain by praying to him?’(F)

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Footnotes

  1. Job 21:13 Or in an instant