Immerse: Poets Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 308
296
IMMERSE
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POETS
“Why do the wicked prosper,
growing old and powerful?
They live to see their children grow up and settle down,
and they enjoy their grandchildren.
Their homes are safe from every fear,
and God does not punish them.
Their bulls never fail to breed.
Their cows bear calves and never miscarry.
They let their children frisk about like lambs.
Their little ones skip and dance.
They sing with tambourine and harp.
They celebrate to the sound of the flute.
They spend their days in prosperity,
then go down to the grave in peace.
And yet they say to God, ‘Go away.
We want no part of you and your ways.
Who is the Almighty, and why should we obey him?
What good will it do us to pray?’
(They think their prosperity is of their own doing,
but I will have nothing to do with that kind of thinking.)
“Yet the light of the wicked never seems to be extinguished.
Do they ever have trouble?
Does God distribute sorrows to them in anger?
Are they driven before the wind like straw?
Are they carried away by the storm like chaff?
Not at all!
“‘Well,’ you say, ‘at least God will punish their children!’
But I say he should punish the ones who sin,
so that they understand his judgment.
Let them see their destruction with their own eyes.
Let them drink deeply of the anger of the Almighty.
For they will not care what happens to their family
after they are dead.
“But who can teach a lesson to God,
since he judges even the most powerful?
One person dies in prosperity,
completely comfortable and secure,
the picture of good health,
vigorous and fit.
Another person dies in bitter poverty,
never having tasted the good life.
21:7-25
