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Job 21

¹Then Job answered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹⁶Behold, 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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

³³The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all men follow after him, and those who go before him are innumerable.

³⁴How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood."

Job 21 (RSV)

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Job

Chapter 21

21 of 42