Job 21:1–34

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. ²⁷ Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me. ²⁸ For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’ ²⁹ Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their reports? ³⁰ Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath. ³¹ Who denounces his behavior to his face? Who repays him for what he has done? ³² He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb. ³³ The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number. ³⁴ So how can you comfort me with empty words? For…