Job 21

Job Replies: The Wicked Do Prosper

1 Then Job answered and said:

2  a “Keep listening to my words,
and let this be your comfort.
 3 Bear with me, and I will speak,
and after I have spoken b mock on.
 4 As for me, is my c complaint against man?
Why should I not be impatient?
 5 Look at me and be appalled,
and d lay your hand over your mouth.
 6 When I remember, I am dismayed,
and shuddering seizes my flesh.
 7  e Why do the wicked live,
reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
 8 Their f offspring are established in their presence,
and their descendants before their eyes.
 9 Their houses are g safe from fear,
and h no rod of God is upon them.
 10 Their bull breeds without fail;
their cow calves and i does not miscarry.
 11 They send out their j little boys like a flock,
and their children dance.
 12 They sing to k the tambourine and l the lyre
and rejoice to the sound of m the pipe.
 13 They n spend their days in prosperity,
and in o peace they go down to p Sheol.
 14 They say to God q ‘Depart from us!
We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.
 15  r What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
And what s profit do we get if we pray to him?’
 16 Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand?
t The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
 17  “How often is it that u the lamp of the wicked is put out?
That their calamity comes upon them?
That God ▼
▼ Hebrew he
 distributes pains in his anger?
 18 That they are like w straw before the wind,
and like x chaff that the storm carries away?
 19 You say, ‘God y stores up their iniquity for their z children.’
Let him pay it out to them, that they may aa know it.
 20 Let their own eyes see their destruction,
and let them ab drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
 21 For what do they care for their houses after them,
when ac the number of their months is cut off?
 22  ad Will any teach God knowledge,
seeing that he ae judges those who are on high?
 23 One dies in his full vigor,
being wholly at ease and secure,
 24 his pails ▼
▼ The meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain
 full of milk
and ag the marrow of his bones moist.
 25 Another dies in ah bitterness of soul,
never having tasted of prosperity.
 26 They ai lie down alike in the dust,
and aj the worms cover them.
 27  “Behold, I know your thoughts
and your schemes to wrong me.
 28 For you say ak ‘Where is the house of the prince?
Where is al the tent in which the wicked lived?’
 29 Have you not asked those who travel the roads,
and do you not accept their testimony
 30 that am the evil man is spared in the day of calamity,
that he is rescued in the day of wrath?
 31 Who declares his way an to his face,
and who ao repays him for what he has done?
 32 When he is ap carried to the grave,
watch is kept over his tomb.
 33  aq The clods of the valley are sweet to him;
ar all mankind follows after him,
and those who go before him are innumerable.
 34 How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?
There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”
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