Job 21

¹Then Job answered and said :

²Keep listening to my words , and let this be your comfort .

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 over your mouth .

⁶When I remember , I am dismayed , and shuddering seizes my flesh .

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

⁸Their offspring are established in their presence , and their descendants 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 miscarry .

¹¹They send out their little boys 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 , Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of your 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.

¹⁷How 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 children . Let him pay it out to them, 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 who are on high ?

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

²⁴his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist .

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

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

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

²⁸For you say , Where is the house of the prince ? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived ?

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

³⁰that the evil 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 repays him for what he has done ?

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

³³The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all mankind follows 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 .