Job 21:1-26 ▼

1 Then Job answered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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