Job 21
1 Job replied:
2 “Listen carefully to my words; let this be your comfort.
3 Be patient with me, and I will speak. After I have spoken, you may mock me.
4 Is my complaint against a human being? Why, then, should I not lose patience?
5 Look at me and be astonished; put your hand over your mouth.
6 When I remember this, I am terrified, and trembling seizes my flesh.
7 Why do the wicked keep living, grow old, and become even stronger?
8 Their descendants are secure in their presence, with them, and their offspring are before their eyes.
9 Their homes are at peace, without fear, and God’s rod is not upon them.
10 Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and does not miscarry.
11 They send out their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.”
12 “They sing to the tambourine and the harp, and rejoice at the sound of the flute.
13 They spend their days in prosperity, and in an instant go down to Sheol.
14 They say to God, ‘Leave us alone; we do not want to know your ways.
15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what do we gain by appealing to him?’
16 Look, their prosperity is not in their own hands. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
17 How often is the lamp of the wicked put out, and disaster comes upon them? How often does God distribute sorrows in his anger?
18 Do they become like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by the storm?
19 You say, ‘God stores up a man’s iniquity for his children.’ Let him repay the man himself, so that he may know it!
20 Let his own eyes see his ruin; let him drink the wrath of the Almighty.
21 For what concern has he for his household after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
22 Can anyone teach God knowledge, when he judges those who are on high?
23 One man dies in his full strength, utterly at ease and secure.”
24 “His pails are full of milk, and the marrow in his bones is well nourished.
25 Another dies with a bitter life, having never tasted prosperity.
26 Together they lie in the dust, and worms cover them.
27 Look, I know your thoughts and the schemes by which you do me violence.
28 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the nobleman? Where is the tent where the wicked lived?’
29 Have you not asked those who travel the roads? Do you not recognize the signs they report?
30 The wicked are spared for the day of disaster; they are led away for the day of wrath.
31 Who will denounce his way to his face? For what he has done, who will repay him?
32 He is carried to the tombs, and a watch is kept over his grave.
33 The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows after him, and those who went before him are beyond counting.
34 So how can you comfort me with empty words? Your answers leave only deceit.”
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