Job 21 ⓘ

21:1 Then Job answered,

21:2 “Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.

21:3 Allow me, and I also will speak. After I have spoken, mock on.

21:4 As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?

21:5 Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.

21:6 When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.

21:7 “Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?

21:8 Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.

21:9 Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.

21:10 Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.

21:11 They send out their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.

21:12 They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.

21:13 They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.

21:14 They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about your ways.

21:15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’

21:16 Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

21:17 “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?

21:18 How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?

21:19 You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.

21:20 Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

21:21 For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?

21:22 “Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high?

21:23 One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.

21:24 His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.

21:25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.

21:26 They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.

21:27 “Behold, I know your thoughts, the plans with which you would wrong me.

21:28 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’

21:29 Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? Don’t you know their evidences,

21:30 that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, that they are led out to the day of wrath?

21:31 Who will declare his way to his face? Who will repay him what he has done?

21:32 Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men will keep watch over the tomb.

21:33 The clods of the valley will be sweet to him. All men will draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.

21:34 So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”