Job 21:7-21

7“Why do the wicked go on living, grow old, and even become more powerful?

8They see their children firmly established with them, and they get to see their descendants.

9Their homes are free from fear, and God doesn’t use his rod on them.

10Their bulls are fertile when they breed. Their cows give birth to calves and never miscarry.

11They send their little children out ⌞to play⌟ like a flock of lambs, and their children dance around.

12They sing with the tambourine and lyre, and they are happy with the music of the flute.

13They spend their days in happiness, and they go peacefully to the grave.

14But they say to God, ‘Leave us alone. We don’t want to know your ways.

15Who is the Almighty that we should serve him? What do we gain if we pray to him?’

16Anyhow, isn’t their happiness in their own power? (The plan of the wicked is foreign to my way of thinking.)

17“How often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does disaster happen to them? How often does an angry God give them pain?

18How often are they like straw in the wind or like husks that the storm sweeps away?

19“⌞You say,⌟ ‘God saves a person’s punishment for his children.’ God should pay back that person so that he would know that it is a punishment.

20His eyes should see his own ruin. He should drink from the wrath of the Almighty.

21How can he be interested in his family after he’s gone, when the number of his months is cut short?