21:1 Then Job replied:
21:2 “Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you give me.
21:3 Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.
21:4 “Is my complaint directed to a human being? Why should I not be impatient?
21:5 Look at me and be appalled; clap your hand over your mouth.
21:6 When I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body.
21:7 Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?
21:8 They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes.
21:9 Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not on them.
21:10 Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry.
21:11 They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about.
21:12 They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre; they make merry to the sound of the pipe.
21:13 They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.* / *Or in an instant
21:14 Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways.
21:15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?’
21:16 But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked.
21:17 “Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in his anger?
21:18 How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?
21:19 It is said, ‘God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.’ Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!
21:20 Let their own eyes see their destruction; let them drink the cup of the wrath of the Almighty.
21:21 For what do they care about the families they leave behind when their allotted months come to an end?
21:22 “Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he judges even the highest?
21:23 One person dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease,
21:24 well nourished in body,* bones rich with marrow. / *The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
21:25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good.
21:26 Side by side they lie in the dust, and worms cover them both.
21:27 “I know full well what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me.
21:28 You say, ‘Where now is the house of the great, the tents where the wicked lived?’
21:29 Have you never questioned those who travel? Have you paid no regard to their accounts -
21:30 that the wicked are spared from the day of calamity, that they are delivered from* the day of wrath? / *Or wicked are reserved for the day of calamity, that they are brought forth to
21:31 Who denounces their conduct to their face? Who repays them for what they have done?
21:32 They are carried to the grave, and watch is kept over their tombs.
21:33 The soil in the valley is sweet to them; everyone follows after them, and a countless throng goes* before them. / *Or them, as a countless throng went
21:34 “So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!”