Job 21

¹ Then Job answered,

² “ Listen diligently to my speech.

³ Allow me, and I also will speak. After I have spoken, mock on.

⁴ As for me, is my complaint to man?

⁵ Look at me, and be astonished.

⁶ When I remember, I am troubled.

⁷ “ Why do the wicked live,

⁸ Their child is established with them in their sight,

⁹ Their houses are safe from fear,

¹⁰ Their bulls breed without fail.

¹¹ They send out their little ones like a flock.

¹² They sing to the tambourine and harp,

¹³ They spend their days in prosperity.

¹⁴ They tell God, ‘ Depart from us,

¹⁵ What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?

¹⁶ Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand.

¹⁷ “ How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out,

¹⁸ How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind,

¹⁹ You say, ‘ God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.

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

²¹ For what does he care for his house after him,

²² “ Shall any teach God knowledge,

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

²⁴ His pails are full of milk.

²⁵ Another dies in bitterness of soul,

²⁶ They lie down alike in the dust.

²⁷ “ Behold, I know your thoughts,

²⁸ For you say, ‘ Where is the house of the prince?

²⁹ Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? Don’t you know their evidences,

³⁰ that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity,

³¹ Who will declare his way to his face?

³² Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men will keep watch over the tomb.

³³ The clods of the valley will be sweet to him.

³⁴ So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood? ”