21 Then Iyyov responded to Zofar and the others:

2 Listen carefully to my words,

and let this be a consolation for you all.

3 Bear with me while I speak,

and after I’ve finished, you can continue mocking then.

4 As for me, is my complaint against any person?

If it was, then you might expect me to be impatient.

5 Turn and look at me and be appalled.

≈Yes, put your hands over your mouths in shock.

6 When I remember what happened, I’m horrified,

and my body starts shuddering.

7 Why do wicked people live?

≈Why do they grow old and become more powerful?

8 Their children become established around them,

≈and their offspring become settled in front of them.

9 Their homes are safe and free from fear.

≈God isn’t punishing them.

10 Their bulls mate productively,

≈and their cows calve without miscarrying.

11 They send out their little ones like a flock,

≈and their children dance all around.

12 They pick up their tambourines and harps,

≈and they’re happy to hear the sound of the flutes.

13 They spend their days in prosperity,

and they go peacefully down to the grave.

14 They tell God, “Leave us alone.

We’re not interested in knowing about your ways.

15 Who is ‘the provider’ and why should we serve him.

What would we gain if we made requests to him?”

16 However, their prosperity isn’t in their hands.

I keep far away from the advice of wicked people.

17 How often is the lamp of wicked people extinguished and calamity hits them?

In his anger, does he dole out pain to them?

18 Are they just like straw blown by the wind,

≈and like chaff that’s carried away by a gale.

19 God saves up their evil for their children.

Let God repay them so they’ll know.

20 Let them watch their own destruction,

and let them drink the severe anger of the provider.

21 After they’re gone, why would they care about their families?

≈Why would they count the months after they’ve already been cut off?

22 Can any person teach knowledge to God

since he judges the high and mighty?

23 Some people die in full strength,

completely secure and at ease.

24 Their buckets are full of milk,

and their bone marrow is nicely moistened.

25 But others die full of bitterness,

and they haven’t tasted prosperity.

26 Both kinds of people lie together in the dust,

and worms cover them both.

27 Yes, I know what you’re all thinking,

and the schemes that you’d all use against me.

28 You all say, ‘Which is the house of that respected person?

And which are the tents that the wicked people live in?’

29 Haven’t you all asked those travelling on the roads?

Don’t you all accept their reports

30 that evil people are spared from the day of calamity—

that they are led away from that day of anger?

31 Who will denounce their actions to their faces?

≈Who will repay them for the evil they’ve done?

32 They’ll be carried off to the cemetery,

≈and someone will keep watch over their tombs.

33 The clods of the riverbed will be sweet to them.

Everyone will follow along behind them,

≈and no one can count those who go in front of them.

34 So how can vanity be of comfort to me?

It’s only faithlessness that remains from the replies that you all have given.