VerseAI

NIV

Job 21

  1. 1<pb/>Then Job replied:
  2. 2<pb/><t>“Listen carefully to my words;</t> <t>let this be the consolation you give me.</t>
  3. 3<t>Bear with me while I speak,</t> <t>and after I have spoken, mock on. <pb/></t>
  4. 4<t>“Is my complaint directed to a human being?</t> <t>Why should I not be impatient?</t>
  5. 5<t>Look at me and be appalled;</t> <t>clap your hand over your mouth.</t>
  6. 6<t>When I think about this, I am terrified;</t> <t>trembling seizes my body.</t>
  7. 7<t>Why do the wicked live on,</t> <t>growing old and increasing in power?</t>
  8. 8<t>They see their children established around them,</t> <t>their offspring before their eyes.</t>
  9. 9<t>Their homes are safe and free from fear;</t> <t>the rod of God is not on them.</t>
  10. 10<t>Their bulls never fail to breed;</t> <t>their cows calve and do not miscarry.</t>
  11. 11<t>They send forth their children as a flock;</t> <t>their little ones dance about.</t>
  12. 12<t>They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre;</t> <t>they make merry to the sound of the pipe.</t>
  13. 13<t>They spend their years in prosperity</t> <t>and go down to the grave in peace.<f>[34]</f></t>
  14. 14<t>Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone!</t> <t>We have no desire to know your ways.</t>
  15. 15<t>Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?</t> <t>What would we gain by praying to him?’</t>
  16. 16<t>But their prosperity is not in their own hands,</t> <t>so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked. <pb/></t>
  17. 17<t>“Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out?</t> <t>How often does calamity come upon them,</t> <t>the fate God allots in his anger?</t>
  18. 18<t>How often are they like straw before the wind,</t> <t>like chaff swept away by a gale?</t>
  19. 19<t>It is said, ‘God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.’</t> <t>Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!</t>
  20. 20<t>Let their own eyes see their destruction;</t> <t>let them drink the cup of the wrath of the Almighty.</t>
  21. 21<t>For what do they care about the families they leave behind</t> <t>when their allotted months come to an end? <pb/></t>
  22. 22<t>“Can anyone teach knowledge to God,</t> <t>since he judges even the highest?</t>
  23. 23<t>One person dies in full vigor,</t> <t>completely secure and at ease,</t>
  24. 24<t>well nourished in body,<f>[35]</f></t> <t>bones rich with marrow.</t>
  25. 25<t>Another dies in bitterness of soul,</t> <t>never having enjoyed anything good.</t>
  26. 26<t>Side by side they lie in the dust,</t> <t>and worms cover them both. <pb/></t>
  27. 27<t>“I know full well what you are thinking,</t> <t>the schemes by which you would wrong me.</t>
  28. 28<t>You say, ‘Where now is the house of the great,</t> <t>the tents where the wicked lived?’</t>
  29. 29<t>Have you never questioned those who travel?</t> <t>Have you paid no regard to their accounts—</t>
  30. 30<t>that the wicked are spared from the day of calamity,</t> <t>that they are delivered from<f>[36]</f> the day of wrath?</t>
  31. 31<t>Who denounces their conduct to their face?</t> <t>Who repays them for what they have done?</t>
  32. 32<t>They are carried to the grave,</t> <t>and watch is kept over their tombs.</t>
  33. 33<t>The soil in the valley is sweet to them;</t> <t>everyone follows after them,</t> <t>and a countless throng goes<f>[37]</f> before them. <pb/></t>
  34. 34<t>“So how can you console me with your nonsense?</t> <t>Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!”</t>