Job 21:1-34 WEB

[1] Then Job answered, [2] “Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation. [3] Allow me, and I also will speak. After I have spoken, mock on. [4] As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient? [5] Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth. [6] When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh. [7] “Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power? [8] Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes. [9] Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. [10] Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry. [11] They send out their little ones like a flock. Their children dance. [12] They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe. [13] They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol. [14] They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about your ways. [15] What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’ [16] Behold, their prosperity is not 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 on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger? [18] How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away? [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, when the number of his months is cut off? [22] “Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high? [23] One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. [24] His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened. [25] Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good. [26] They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them. [27] “Behold, I know your thoughts, the plans with which you would wrong me. [28] For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’ [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, that they are led out to the day of wrath? [31] Who will declare his way to his face? Who will repay him what he has done? [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. All men will draw after him, as there were innumerable before him. [34] So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”