Job 21:1-34 NET

[1] Then Job answered: [2] "Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you offer me. [3] Bear with me and I will speak, and after I have spoken you may mock. [4] Is my complaint against a man? If so, why should I not be impatient? [5] Look at me and be appalled; put your hands over your mouths. [6] For, when I think about this, I am terrified and my body feels a shudder. [7] "Why do the wicked go on living, grow old, even increase in power? [8] Their children are firmly established in their presence, their offspring before their eyes. [9] Their houses are safe and without fear; and no rod of punishment from God is upon them. [10] Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and do not miscarry. [11] They allow their children to run like a flock; their little ones dance about. [12] They sing to the accompaniment of tambourine and harp, and make merry to the sound of the flute. [13] They live out their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace. [14] So they say to God, 'Turn away from us! We do not want to know your ways. [15] Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain if we were to pray to him?' [16] But their prosperity is not their own doing. The counsel of the wicked is far from me! [17] "How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished? How often does their misfortune come upon them? How often does God apportion pain to them in his anger? [18] How often are they like straw before the wind, and like chaff swept away by a whirlwind? [19] You may say, 'God stores up a man's punishment for his children!' Instead let him repay the man himself so that he may be humbled! [20] Let his own eyes see his destruction; let him drink of the anger of the Almighty. [21] For what is his interest in his home after his death, when the number of his months has been broken off? [22] Can anyone teach God knowledge, since he judges those that are on high? [23] "One man dies in his full vigor, completely secure and prosperous, [24] his body well nourished, and the marrow of his bones moist. [25] And another man dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted anything good. [26] Together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover over them both. [27] "Yes, I know what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me. [28] For you say, 'Where now is the nobleman's house, and where are the tents in which the wicked lived?' [29] Have you never questioned those who travel the roads? Do you not recognize their accounts- [30] that the evil man is spared from the day of his misfortune, that he is delivered from the day of God's wrath? [31] No one denounces his conduct to his face; no one repays him for what he has done. [32] And when he is carried to the tombs, and watch is kept over the funeral mound, [33] The clods of the torrent valley are sweet to him; behind him everybody follows in procession, and before him goes a countless throng. [34] So how can you console me with your futile words? Nothing is left of your answers but deception!"