Job Chapter 21 Back Next{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 forth 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 devices 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 forth to the day of wrath?
{21:31} Who shall declare his way to his face? Who shall repay him what he has done?
{21:32} Yet he will be borne to the
grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb.
{21:33} The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall 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?"
Job Chapter 21 Back Next