NHEBME - Job - 21

21:1  Then Job answered,

21:2  "Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.

21:3  Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on.

21:4  As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn't I be impatient?

21:5  Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.

21:6  When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.

21:7  "Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?

21:8  Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.

21:9  Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.

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

21:11  They send forth their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.

21:12  They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.

21:13  They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.

21:14  They tell God, 'Depart from us, for we do not want to know about your ways.

21:15  What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?'

21:16  Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

21:17  "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger?

21:18  How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?

21:19  You say, 'God lays up his iniquity for his children.' Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.

21:20  Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

21:21  For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?

21:22  "Shall any teach God knowledge, seeing he judges those who are high?

21:23  One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.

21:24  His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.

21:25  Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.

21:26  They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.

21:27  "Behold, I know your thoughts, the devices with which you would wrong me.

21:28  For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?'

21:29  Haven't you asked wayfaring men? Do you not know their evidences,

21:30  that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led forth to the day of wrath?

21:31  Who shall declare his way to his face? Who shall repay him what he has done?

21:32  Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb.

21:33  The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.

21:34  So how can you comfort me with nonsense, seeing that in your answers there remains only falsehood?"