Job 21

¹ Then Job answered:

² "Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation.

³ Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.

⁴ As for me, is my complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient?

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

⁶ When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.

⁷ Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?

⁸ Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes.

⁹ Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them.

¹⁰ Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves, and does not cast her calf.

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

¹² They sing to the tambourine and the lyre, and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

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

¹⁴ They say to God, 'Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of thy ways.

¹⁵ What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?'

¹⁶ Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

¹⁷ "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God distributes pains in his anger?

¹⁸ That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?

¹⁹ You say, 'God stores up their iniquity for their sons.' Let him recompense it to themselves, that they may know it.

²⁰ Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

²¹ For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off?

²² Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those that are on high?

²³ One dies in full prosperity, being wholly at ease and secure,

²⁴ his body full of fat and the marrow of his bones moist.

²⁵ Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of good.

²⁶ They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.

²⁷ "Behold, I know your thoughts, and your schemes to wrong me.

²⁸ For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked dwelt?'

²⁹ Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony

³⁰ that the wicked man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath?

³¹ Who declares his way to his face, and who requites him for what he has done?

³² When he is borne to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb.

³³ The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all men follow 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."