Job 21

^{Job 21:1} Then Job answered:

^{Job 21:2} “Listen carefully to my words; let this be your consolation to me.

^{Job 21:3} Bear with me while I speak; then, after I have spoken, you may go on mocking.

^{Job 21:4} Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?

^{Job 21:5} Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth.

^{Job 21:6} When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror.

^{Job 21:7} Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?

^{Job 21:8} Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes.

^{Job 21:9} Their homes are safe from fear; no rod of punishment from God is upon them.

^{Job 21:10} Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry.

^{Job 21:11} They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,

^{Job 21:12} singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry at the sound of the flute.

^{Job 21:13} They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace.

^{Job 21:14} Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways.

^{Job 21:15} Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’

^{Job 21:16} Still, their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.

^{Job 21:17} How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?

^{Job 21:18} Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?

^{Job 21:19} It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.

^{Job 21:20} Let his eyes see his own destruction; let him drink for himself the wrath of the Almighty.

^{Job 21:21} For what does he care about his household after him, when the number of his months has run out?

^{Job 21:22} Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges those on high?

^{Job 21:23} One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease.

^{Job 21:24} His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.

^{Job 21:25} Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity.

^{Job 21:26} But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.

^{Job 21:27} Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.

^{Job 21:28} For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’

^{Job 21:29} Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their reports?

^{Job 21:30} Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath.

^{Job 21:31} Who denounces his behavior to his face? Who repays him for what he has done?

^{Job 21:32} He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.

^{Job 21:33} The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number.

^{Job 21:34} So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.”