20  Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me;

though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.

21  I am blameless; I regard not myself;

^cI loathe my life.

22  It is all one; therefore I say,

‘He destroys ^dboth the blameless and the wicked.’

23  When disaster brings sudden death,

he mocks at the calamity¹ of the innocent.

24  The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;

^ehe covers the faces of its judges—

if it is not he, who then is it?