Job 21

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Then Job answered:

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“Listen carefully to my words; let this be your consolation to me.

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Bear with me while I speak; then, after I have spoken, you may go on mocking.

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Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?

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

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When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror.

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Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?

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Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes.

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Their homes are safe from fear; no rod of punishment from God is upon them.

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Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry.

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They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,

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singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry at the sound of the flute.

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They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace.

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Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways.

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Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’

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Still, their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.

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How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?

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Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?

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It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.

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Let his eyes see his own destruction; let him drink for himself the wrath of the Almighty.

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For what does he care about his household after him, when the number of his months has run out?

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Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges those on high?

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One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease.

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His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.

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Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity.

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But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.

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Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.

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For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’

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Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their reports?

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Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath.

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Who denounces his behavior to his face? Who repays him for what he has done?

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

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The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number.

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So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.”