Job 21 / 42
- 1Then Job replied:
- 2"Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you give me.
- 3Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.
- 4"Is my complaint directed to man? Why should I not be impatient?
- 5Look at me and be astonished; clap your hand over your mouth.
- 6When I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body.
- 7Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?
- 8They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes.
- 9Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not upon them.
- 10Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry.
- 11They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about.
- 12They sing to the music of tambourine and harp; they make merry to the sound of the flute.
- 13They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.
- 14Yet they say to God, 'Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways.
- 15Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?'
- 16But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from the counsel of the wicked.
- 17"Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in his anger?
- 18How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?
- 19It is said, 'God stores up a man's punishment for his sons.' Let him repay the man himself, so that he will know it!
- 20Let his own eyes see his destruction; let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
- 21For what does he care about the family he leaves behind when his allotted months come to an end?
- 22"Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he judges even the highest?
- 23One man dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease,
- 24his body well nourished, his bones rich with marrow.
- 25Another man dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good.
- 26Side by side they lie in the dust, and worms cover them both.
- 27"I know full well what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me.
- 28You say, 'Where now is the great man's house, the tents where wicked men lived?'
- 29Have you never questioned those who travel? Have you paid no regard to their accounts-
- 30that the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, that he is delivered from the day of wrath?
- 31Who denounces his conduct to his face? Who repays him for what he has done?
- 32He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.
- 33The soil in the valley is sweet to him; all men follow after him, and a countless throng goes before him.
- 34"So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!"