Job 21

1Then Job answered:

2“Listen carefully to my words, and let this be the comfort you give me.

3Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, you may mock.

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

5Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth.

6When I think about it, I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my body.

7Why do the wicked go on living, growing old and even growing mighty in power?

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

9Their houses are safe from fear; the rod of God is not on them.

10Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and does not miscarry.

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

12They sing to the tambourine and lyre and rejoice at the sound of the flute.

13They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in an instant.

14Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We do not want to know your ways.

15Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?’

16Look, their prosperity is not in their own hands; the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

17How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? How often does disaster come on them, the pains God deals out in his anger?

18How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff that a storm sweeps away?

19Does God store up a man’s punishment for his children? Let him repay the man himself, so that he knows it.

20Let his own eyes see his ruin; let him drink the wrath of the Almighty.

21For what does he care about his household after he is gone, when the number of his months has been cut off?

22Can anyone teach God knowledge, since he judges even those on high?

23One person dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease,

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

25Another dies with a bitter soul, never having tasted anything good.

26Together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.

27Look, I know your thoughts, the schemes by which you would wrong me.

28For you say, ‘Where is the house of the great man now? Where is the tent the wicked lived in?’

29Have you not asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their evidence,

30that the evil person is spared on the day of disaster, rescued on the day of wrath?

31Who confronts him to his face about his conduct? Who repays him for what he has done?

32He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.

33The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows after him, and countless people went before him.

34How then can you comfort me with empty words? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood.”