NETfree - Job - 21

21:1  Then Job answered:

21:2  "Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you offer me.

21:3  Bear with me and I will speak, and after I have spoken you may mock.

21:4  Is my complaint against a man? If so, why should I not be impatient?

21:5  Look at me and be appalled; put your hands over your mouths.

21:6  For, when I think about this, I am terrified and my body feels a shudder.

21:7  "Why do the wicked go on living, grow old, even increase in power?

21:8  Their children are firmly established in their presence, their offspring before their eyes.

21:9  Their houses are safe and without fear; and no rod of punishment from God is upon them.

21:10  Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and do not miscarry.

21:11  They allow their children to run like a flock; their little ones dance about.

21:12  They sing to the accompaniment of tambourine and harp, and make merry to the sound of the flute.

21:13  They live out their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.

21:14  So they say to God, 'Turn away from us! We do not want to know your ways.

21:15  Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain if we were to pray to him?'

21:16  But their prosperity is not their own doing. The counsel of the wicked is far from me!

21:17  "How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished? How often does their misfortune come upon them? How often does God apportion pain to them in his anger?

21:18  How often are they like straw before the wind, and like chaff swept away by a whirlwind?

21:19  You may say, 'God stores up a man's punishment for his children!' Instead let him repay the man himself so that he may know it!

21:20  Let his own eyes see his destruction; let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.

21:21  For what is his interest in his home after his death, when the number of his months has been broken off?

21:22  Can anyone teach God knowledge, since he judges those that are on high?

21:23  "One man dies in his full vigor, completely secure and prosperous,

21:24  his body well nourished, and the marrow of his bones moist.

21:25  And another man dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted anything good.

21:26  Together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover over them both.

21:27  "Yes, I know what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me.

21:28  For you say, 'Where now is the nobleman's house, and where are the tents in which the wicked lived?'

21:29  Have you never questioned those who travel the roads? Do you not recognize their accounts -

21:30  that the evil man is spared from the day of his misfortune, that he is delivered from the day of God's wrath?

21:31  No one denounces his conduct to his face; no one repays him for what he has done.

21:32  And when he is carried to the tombs, and watch is kept over the funeral mound,

21:33  The clods of the torrent valley are sweet to him; behind him everybody follows in procession, and before him goes a countless throng.

21:34  So how can you console me with your futile words? Nothing is left of your answers but deception!"