Job 21
v1
Then Job answered,
v2
“Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.
v3
Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on.
v4
As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
v5
Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
v6
When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
v7
“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
v8
Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.
v9
Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
v10
Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.
v11
They send out their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.
v12
They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
v13
They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.
v14
They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about your ways.
v15
What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?‘
v16
Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
v17
“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger?
v18
How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
v19
You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
v20
Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
v21
For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
v22
“Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high?
v23
One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
v24
His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.
v25
Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.
v26
They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
v27
“Behold, I know your thoughts, the plans with which you would wrong me.
v28
For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?‘
v29
Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? Don’t you know their evidences,
v30
that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led out to the day of wrath?
v31
Who will declare his way to his face? Who will repay him what he has done?
v32
Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men will keep watch over the tomb.
v33
The clods of the valley will be sweet to him. All men will draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.
v34
So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”