Job 21

1Then Job answered, 2Let this be your consolation. “Listen diligently to my speech. 3After I have spoken, mock on. Allow me, and I also will speak; 4Why shouldn’t I be impatient? As for me, is my complaint to man? 5Lay your hand on your mouth. Look at me, and be astonished. 6Horror takes hold of my flesh. When I remember, I am troubled. 7become old, yes, and grow mighty in power? “Why do the wicked live, 8their offspring before their eyes. Their child is established with them in their sight, 9neither is the rod of God upon them. Their houses are safe from fear, 10Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry. Their bulls breed without fail. 11Their children dance. They send out their little ones like a flock. 12and rejoice at the sound of the pipe. They sing to the tambourine and harp, 13* They spend their days in prosperity. 14for we don’t want to know about your ways. They tell God, ‘Depart from us, 15What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’ What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? 16The counsel of the wicked is far from me. Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. 17that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger? “How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, 18as chaff that the storm carries away? How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, 19Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it. You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ 20Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. Let his own eyes see his destruction. 21when the number of his months is cut off? For what does he care for his house after him, 22since he judges those who are high? “Shall any teach God knowledge, 23being wholly at ease and quiet. One dies in his full strength, 24The marrow of his bones is moistened. His pails are full of milk. 25and never tastes of good. Another dies in bitterness of soul, 26The worm covers them. They lie down alike in the dust. 27the devices with which you would wrong me. “Behold, I know your thoughts, 28Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’ For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? 29Don’t you know their evidences, Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? 30That they are led out to the day of wrath? that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, 31Who shall repay him what he has done? Who shall declare his way to his face? 32Men shall keep watch over the tomb. Yet he will be borne to the grave. 33All men shall draw after him, as there were innumerable before him. The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. 34because in your answers there remains only falsehood?” So how can you comfort me with nonsense,