| 1 | Then Job answered,
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| 2 | "Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.
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| 3 | Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on.
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| 4 | As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn't I be impatient?
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| 5 | Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
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| 6 | When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
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| 7 | "Why do the wicked live, Become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
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| 8 | Their child is established with them in their sight, Their offspring before their eyes.
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| 9 | Their houses are safe from fear, Neither is the rod of God upon them.
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| 10 | Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don't miscarry.
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| 11 | They send forth their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.
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| 12 | They sing to the tambourine and harp, And rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
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| 13 | They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.
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| 14 | They tell God, 'Depart from us, For we don't want to know about your ways.
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| 15 | What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?'
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| 16 | Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand: The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
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| 17 | "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes on them? That God distributes sorrows in his anger?
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| 18 | That they are as stubble before the wind, As chaff that the storm carries away?
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| 19 | You say, 'God lays up his iniquity for his children.' Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
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| 20 | Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
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| 21 | For what does he care for his house after him, When the number of his months is cut off?
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| 22 | "Shall any teach God knowledge, Seeing he judges those who are high?
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| 23 | One dies in his full strength, Being wholly at ease and quiet.
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| 24 | His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.
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| 25 | Another dies in bitterness of soul, And never tastes of good.
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| 26 | They lie down alike in the dust, The worm covers them.
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| 27 | "Behold, I know your thoughts, The devices with which you would wrong me.
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| 28 | For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?'
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| 29 | Haven't you asked wayfaring men? Don't you know their evidences,
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| 30 | That the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity? That they are led forth to the day of wrath?
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| 31 | Who shall declare his way to his face? Who shall repay him what he has done?
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| 32 | Yet shall he be borne to the grave, Men shall keep watch over the tomb.
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| 33 | The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall draw after him, As there were innumerable before him.
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| 34 | So how can you comfort me with nonsense, Seeing that in your answers there remains only falsehood?"
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