Job 21:1 ←
Then Job answered,
Job 21:2 ←
“Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.
Job 21:3 ←
Allow me, and I also will speak. After I have spoken, mock on.
Job 21:4 ←
As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
Job 21:5 ←
Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
Job 21:6 ←
When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
Job 21:7 ←
“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
Job 21:8 ←
Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.
Job 21:9 ←
Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
Job 21:10 ←
Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.
Job 21:11 ←
They send out their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.
Job 21:12 ←
They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
Job 21:13 ←
They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.
Job 21:14 ←
They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about your ways.
Job 21:15 ←
What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’
Job 21:16 ←
Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
Job 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?
Job 21:18 ←
How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
Job 21:19 ←
You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
Job 21:20 ←
Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
Job 21:21 ←
For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
Job 21:22 ←
“Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high?
Job 21:23 ←
One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
Job 21:24 ←
His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.
Job 21:25 ←
Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.
Job 21:26 ←
They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
Job 21:27 ←
“Behold, I know your thoughts, the plans with which you would wrong me.
Job 21:28 ←
For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
Job 21:29 ←
Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? Don’t you know their evidences,
Job 21:30 ←
that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, that they are led out to the day of wrath?
Job 21:31 ←
Who will declare his way to his face? Who will repay him what he has done?
Job 21:32 ←
Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men will keep watch over the tomb.
Job 21:33 ←
The clods of the valley will be sweet to him. All men will draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.
Job 21:34 ←
So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”
Public Domain