Job 21

Job Replies: The Wicked Often Go Unpunished

²¹Then Job answered:

²“Listen carefully to my words,

and let this be your consolation.

³Bear with me, and I will speak;

then after I have spoken, mock on.^*

⁴As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals?

Why should I not be impatient?^*

⁵Look at me and be appalled,

and lay your hand upon your mouth.^*

⁶When I think of it I am dismayed,

and shuddering seizes my flesh.

⁷Why do the wicked live on,

reach old age, and grow mighty in power?^*

⁸Their children are established in their presence

and their offspring before their eyes.^*

⁹Their houses are safe from fear,

and no rod of God is upon them.^*

¹⁰Their bull breeds without fail;

their cow calves and never miscarries.^*

¹¹They send out their little ones like a flock,

and their children dance around.

¹²They sing to the tambourine and the lyre

and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.^*

¹³They spend their days in prosperity,

and in peace they go down to Sheol.^*

¹⁴They say to God, ‘Leave us alone!

We do not desire to know your ways.^*

¹⁵What is the Almighty,^e that we should serve him?

And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’^*

¹⁶Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?^f

The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.^*

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

How often does calamity come upon them?

How often does God^g distribute pains in his anger?^*

¹⁸How often are they like straw before the wind

and like chaff that the storm carries away?^*

¹⁹You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’

Let it be paid back to them, so that they may know it.^*

²⁰Let their own eyes see their destruction,

and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.^h*

²¹For what do they care for their household after them,

when the number of their months is cut off?

²²Will any teach God knowledge,

seeing that he judges those who are on high?^*

²³One dies in full prosperity,

being wholly at ease and secure,

²⁴his loins full of milk

and the marrow of his bones moist.

²⁵Another dies in bitterness of soul,

never having tasted of good.

²⁶They lie down alike in the dust,

and the worms cover them.^*

²⁷“Oh, I know your thoughts

and your schemes to wrong me.

²⁸For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?

Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’^*

²⁹Have you not asked those who travel the roads,

and do you not accept their testimony,

³⁰that the wicked are spared in the day of calamity

and are rescued in the day of wrath?^*

³¹Who declares their way to their face,

and who repays them for what they have done?

³²When they are carried to the grave,

a watch is kept over their tomb.

³³The clods of the valley are sweet to them;

everyone will follow after,

and those who went before are innumerable.^*

³⁴How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?

There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”