Round Two: Job's Third Speech:
How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?
211Then Job responded:
2Listen carefully to my words
—that is the kind of encouragement you should give me.
3Put up with me while I speak.
Then, after I have spoken, you may resume your mocking.
4Is my complaint against a man?
Why shouldn't I be impatient?
5Look at me and be shocked,[] and then put your hand over your mouth.
6When I remember all this, I am terrified,[] and horror makes my flesh tremble.
7Why do the wicked keep living,
reach old age, and even become stronger?
8Their descendants are firmly established in their presence,
and they live long enough to see their offspring.
9Their houses are safe from fear,
and God's rod does not strike them.
10The wicked man's bulls breed without failing.
His cows deliver calves without miscarrying.
11Their toddlers frolic like flocks,
and their children dance around.
12They sing to the accompaniment of hand drums and lyres.
They celebrate to the sound of a flute.
13They finish out[] their days in prosperity. Then they go down to the grave in a moment.
14They say to God, “Keep away from us.
We know your ways, but we find no pleasure in them.”
15“Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him,
and what benefit do we gain from pleading with him?”
16But I know that their prosperity is not in their own hands,
so I have distanced myself from the way of life[] of the wicked. 17How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?
How often does the disaster they deserve come upon them?
How often does God in his anger dole out their fair share of pain?
18How often are they like straw blown by the wind,
like chaff that a windstorm whisks away?
19People say, “God stores up a man's punishment for his children,”
but he should repay the man himself so that he experiences it!
20Let his own eyes see his condemnation.[] Let him drink from the rage of the Almighty,
21for what does he care about his household after his death,
when his allotment of months has run out?
