5. Turn to me and be appalled, and place your hand on your mouth.
6. And when I think of it, I am horrified, and shuddering seizes my flesh.
7. “Why do the wicked live, grow old, even grow mighty in power?
8. With them their offspring are established before them, and their descendants before their eyes.
9. Their houses are safe without fear, and the rod of God is not upon them.
10. His bull breeds and does not fail; his cow calves and does not miscarry.
11. They send out their little ones like the flock, and their children dance around.
12. They sing to the tambourine and lyre, and they rejoice to the sound of the long flute.
13. They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.
14. And they say to God, ‘Turn away from us, for we do not desire to know your ways.
15. Who is Shaddai that we should serve him, or what would we benefit when we plead with him?’
16. Look, their prosperity is not in their hands; the schemes of the wicked are repugnant to me.
17. “How often is the lamp of the wicked put out, and their disaster comes upon them? He distributes pains in his anger.
18. How often are they like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?
19. ‘God stores up his iniquity for his children’? Then let him repay it to him that he may know.
20. Let his eyes see his decay, and let him drink from the wrath of Shaddai,
21. for what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
22. Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he himself judges high ones?
23. This one dies in full prosperity, completely at ease and secure.
24. His vats are full with milk and the marrow of his bones is moist.
25. Yet another dies with a bitter inner self and has not tasted prosperity.