Job 21:7–18

Wicked People Do Not Suffer for Their Sins

⁷“Why do the wicked go on living, grow old, 

and even become more powerful? 

⁸They see their children firmly established with them, 

and they get to see their descendants. 

⁹Their homes are free from fear, 

and God doesn’t use his rod on them. 

¹⁰Their bulls are fertile when they breed. 

Their cows give birth to calves and never miscarry. 

¹¹They send their little children out ⸤to play⸥ 

like a flock of lambs, 

and their children dance around. 

¹²They sing with the tambourine and lyre, 

and they are happy with the music of the flute. 

¹³They spend their days in happiness, 

and they go peacefully to the grave. 

¹⁴But they say to God, 

‘Leave us alone. 

We don’t want to know your ways. 

¹⁵Who is the Almighty that we should serve him? 

What do we gain if we pray to him?’ 

¹⁶Anyhow, isn’t their happiness in their own power? 

(The plan of the wicked is foreign to my way of thinking.) 

¹⁷“How often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? 

How often does disaster happen to them? 

How often does an angry God give them pain? 

¹⁸How often are they like straw in the wind 

or like husks that the storm sweeps away?