Job 21

1Then Job answered: 2Listen carefully to what I say, and let that be the comfort you give me. 3Bear with me while I speak; then, when I have finished, go on mocking. 4As for me, is my complaint against a human being? Why then should I not be impatient? 5Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth. 6When I think about it, I am terrified, and my whole body shudders. 7Why do the wicked go on living, growing old and growing ever more powerful? 8Their children are settled securely around them; their descendants grow up before their eyes. 9Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God does not strike them. 10Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and never miscarry. 11They let their little ones run out like a flock of lambs, and their children skip about. 12They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and make merry at the sound of the flute. 13They live out their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in an instant. 14Yet they say to God, “Leave us alone! We have no wish to know your ways. 15Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What good will it do us to pray to him?” 16Yet their prosperity is not in their own hands. The advice of the wicked is far from me. 17How often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does disaster fall on them, or God deal out sorrows in his anger? 18How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm? 19You say, “God stores up their punishment for their children.” Let God repay the wicked themselves, so that they feel it! 20Let them see their own ruin with their own eyes; let them drink the wrath of the Almighty. 21For what do they care about their family after they are gone, when the number of their months has run out? 22Can anyone teach God knowledge, when he judges even those on high? 23One person dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease. 24Their pails are full of milk, and their bones are rich with marrow. 25Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted anything good. 26They lie down alike in the dust, and worms cover them both. 27Look, I know what you are thinking, the schemes you plot to wrong me. 28For you say, “Where now is the prince’s house? Where are the tents where the wicked lived?” 29Have you never asked people who travel the roads? Do you not accept what they report? 30that the evil are spared on the day of disaster and led to safety on the day of wrath. 31Who confronts them to their face about the way they live? Who pays them back for what they have done? 32They are carried in procession to the grave, and a watch is kept over their tomb. 33The soil of the valley lies gently on them; everyone walks behind in the procession, and countless people go ahead. 34So how can you comfort me with empty words? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood.