Job 21

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¹Then Job answered and said,

²“Listen carefully to my words, and let this be the comfort you offer to me.

³Put up with me, and I also will speak; after I have spoken, mock on.

⁴As for me, is my complaint to a person? Why should I not be impatient?

⁵Look at me and be astonished, and lay your hand upon your mouth.

⁶When I think about my sufferings, I am terrified, and trembling seizes my body.

⁷Why do wicked people continue to live, become old, and grow mighty in power?

⁸Their descendants are established with them in their sight, and their offspring are established before their eyes.

⁹Their houses are safe from fear; neither is the rod of God on them.

¹⁰Their bull breeds; it does not fail to do so; their cow gives birth and does not lose her calf prematurely.

¹¹They send out their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.

¹²They sing to the tambourine and harp and rejoice with the music of the flute.

¹³They spend their days in prosperity, and they go down quietly to Sheol.

¹⁴They say to God, 'Depart from us for we do not wish any knowledge of your ways.

¹⁵What is the Almighty, that we should worship him? What advantage would we get if we prayed to him?'

¹⁶See, is not their prosperity in their own hands? I have nothing to do with the advice of wicked people.

¹⁷How often is it that the lamp of wicked people is put out, or that their calamity comes upon them? How often does it happen that God distributes sorrows to them in his anger?

¹⁸How often is it that they become like stubble before the wind or like chaff that the storm carries away?

¹⁹You say, 'God lays up one's guilt for his children to pay.' Let him pay it himself, so that he might know his guilt.

²⁰Let his eyes see his own destruction, and let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

²¹For what does he care about his family after him when the number of his months is cut off?

²²Can anyone teach God knowledge since he judges even those who are high?

²³One man dies in his full strength, being completely quiet and at ease.

²⁴His body is full of milk, and the marrow of his bones is moist.

²⁵Another man dies in bitterness of soul, one who has never experienced anything good.

²⁶They lie down alike in the dust; the worms cover them both.

²⁷See, I know your thoughts, and the ways in which you wish to wrong me.

²⁸For you say, 'Where now is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked man once lived?'

²⁹Have you never asked traveling people? Do you not know the evidence they can tell,

³⁰that the wicked man is kept from the day of calamity, and that he is led away from the day of wrath?

³¹Who will condemn the wicked man's way to his face? Who will repay him for what he has done?

³²Yet he will be borne to the grave; men will keep watch over his tomb.

³³The clods of the valley will be sweet to him; all people will follow after him, as there were innumerable people before him.

³⁴How then do you comfort me with nonsense, since in your answers there is nothing but falsehood?”