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- ¶ THEN Job answered and said,
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- Listen diligently to my speech, and let this be your consolation.
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- Suffer me that I may speak;
and after I have spoken, then mock on.
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- I will utter my complaint to men, why my spirit is distressed.
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- Return to me, and be astonished, and lay your hand upon your mouth.
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- Even when I think of it, I tremble, and terror takes hold of my flesh.
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- ¶ Why do the ungodly live, and why are the mighty in power full of years?
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- Their descendants are established in their sight with them, and their children before their eyes.
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- Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
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- Their bull breeds, and fails not;
their cow calves, and does not cast her calf.
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- Their children stand firm like a flock, and their boys dance.
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- They take the timbrels and harps, and rejoice at the sound of singing.
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- They spend their days in prosperity, and then suddenly go down to Sheol.
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- They say to God, Depart from us;
for we do not desire to know thy ways.
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- Moreover, they say, Who is God, that we should serve him?
And what would we gain, that we should pray to him?
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- Lo, they have no power over their prosperity;
the counsel of the ungodly is far from me.
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- ¶ How often is it that the wicked are left without an heir!
how often their destruction comes upon them! God distributes sorrows in his anger.
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- They are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away.
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- God reserves man’s iniquity for his children;
he pays it back to him, and he shall know it.
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- His eyes shall see his destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
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- For what pleasure has he in his house after him, when a portion of his years shall be reserved for his posterity?
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- Shall any teach God knowledge, seeing it is he who judges the proud?
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- One dies in his full strength, sound of body, being wholly confident, and at ease.
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- His body is full of fat, and his bones are filled with marrow.
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- And another dies in the bitterness of his soul, never having tasted prosperity.
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- They shall lie down in the dust, and the worms shall cover them.
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- ¶ Behold, I know your thoughts, and the devices which you wrongfully imagine against me.
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- For you say.
Where is the house of the righteous? And where is the place in which the wicked has pitched his tent?
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- Have you not asked those who pass by the way?
And do you not recognize their tokens?
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- For the evil man is reserved for the day of destruction, he shall be remembered in the day of wrath.
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- Who can show him the way?
And who shall repay him for what he has done?
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- Yet he shall be brought to the grave, he is reserved for misfortune.
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- The depths of the valley shall swallow him, and many shall be drawn in after him, even as there are innumerable ahead of him.
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- How then can you comfort me in vain, seeing that your abominable answers are multiplied before me?
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