5. Look at me and be appalled,put your hands over your mouths.
6. When I think of it, I am dismayed,and shuddering seizes my flesh.
7. Why do the wicked keep on living,grow old, become mighty in power?
8. Their progeny is secure in their sight;their offspring are before their eyes.
9. Their homes are safe, without fear,and the rod of God is not upon them.
10. Their bulls breed without fail;their cows calve and do not miscarry.
11. They let their young run free like sheep,their children skip about.
12. They sing along with drum and lyre,and make merry to the sound of the pipe.
13. They live out their days in prosperity,and tranquilly go down to Sheol.
14. Yet they say to God, “Depart from us,for we have no desire to know your ways!
15. What is the Almighty that we should serve him?And what do we gain by praying to him?”
16. Their happiness is not in their own hands.The designs of the wicked are far from me!
17. How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?How often does destruction come upon them,the portion God allots in his anger?
18. Let them be like straw before the wind,like chaff the storm carries away!
19. “God is storing up the man’s misery for his children”?—let him requite the man himself so that he knows it!
20. Let his own eyes behold his calamity,and the wrath of the Almighty let him drink!