Job 21

₂“Keep 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.

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 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.

₂₇“Behold, 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.”