Chapter
21
"Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.
Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on.
As for me, is my complaint to woman? Why shouldn't I be impatient?
Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
"Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.
Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don't miscarry.
They send forth their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.
They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.
They tell God, 'Depart from us, for we don't want to know about your ways.
What is the Almighty, that we should serve her? What profit should we have, if we pray to her?'
Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
"How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in her anger?
How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
You say, 'God lays up her iniquity for her children.' Let her recompense it to herself, that she may know it.
Let her own eyes see her destruction. Let her drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
For what does she care for her house after her, when the number of her months is cut off?
"Shall any teach God knowledge, seeing she judges those who are high?
One dies in her full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
Hers pails are full of milk. The marrow of her bones is moistened.
Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.
They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
"Behold, I know your thoughts, the devices with which you would wrong me.
For you say, 'Where is the house of the princess? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?'
Haven't you asked wayfaring women? Don't you know their evidences,
that the evil woman is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led forth to the day of wrath?
Who shall declare her way to her face? Who shall repay her what she has done?
Yet she will be borne to the grave. Women shall keep watch over the tomb.
The clods of the valley shall be sweet to her. All women shall draw after her, as there were innumerable before her.
So how can you comfort me with nonsense, seeing that in your answers there remains only falsehood?"