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Job 21

Job’s Seventh Speech: A Response to Zophar

¹Then Job spoke again:

²“Listen closely to what I am saying. That’s one consolation you can give me.

³Bear with me, and let me speak. After I have spoken, you may resume mocking me.

⁴“My complaint is with God, not with people. I have good reason to be so impatient.

⁵Look at me and be stunned. Put your hand over your mouth in shock.

⁶When I think about what I am saying, I shudder. My body trembles.

⁷“Why do the wicked prosper, growing old and powerful?

⁸They live to see their children grow up and settle down, and they enjoy their grandchildren.

⁹Their homes are safe from every fear, and God does not punish them.

¹⁰Their bulls never fail to breed. Their cows bear calves and never miscarry.

¹¹They let their children frisk about like lambs. Their little ones skip and dance.

¹²They sing with tambourine and harp. They celebrate to the sound of the flute.

¹³They spend their days in prosperity, then go down to the grave in peace.

¹⁴And yet they say to God, ‘Go away. We want no part of you and your ways.

¹⁵Who is the Almighty, and why should we obey him? What good will it do us to pray?’

¹⁶(They think their prosperity is of their own doing, but I will have nothing to do with that kind of thinking.)

¹⁷“Yet the light of the wicked never seems to be extinguished. Do they ever have trouble? Does God distribute sorrows to them in anger?

¹⁸Are they driven before the wind like straw? Are they carried away by the storm like chaff? Not at all!

¹⁹“‘Well,’ you say, ‘at least God will punish their children!’ But I say he should punish the ones who sin, so that they understand his judgment.

²⁰Let them see their destruction with their own eyes. Let them drink deeply of the anger of the Almighty.

²¹For they will not care what happens to their family after they are dead.

²²“But who can teach a lesson to God, since he judges even the most powerful?

²³One person dies in prosperity, completely comfortable and secure,

²⁴the picture of good health, vigorous and fit.

²⁵Another person dies in bitter poverty, never having tasted the good life.

²⁶But both are buried in the same dust, both eaten by the same maggots.

²⁷“Look, I know what you’re thinking. I know the schemes you plot against me.

²⁸You will tell me of rich and wicked people whose houses have vanished because of their sins.

²⁹But ask those who have been around, and they will tell you the truth.

³⁰Evil people are spared in times of calamity and are allowed to escape disaster.

³¹No one criticizes them openly or pays them back for what they have done.

³²When they are carried to the grave, an honor guard keeps watch at their tomb.

³³A great funeral procession goes to the cemetery. Many pay their respects as the body is laid to rest, and the earth gives sweet repose.

³⁴“How can your empty clichés comfort me? All your explanations are lies!”

Job 21 (NLT)

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Job

Chapter 21

21 of 42