Job
21
- Then Job replied:
- "Listen carefully to my words; let this
be the consolation you give me.
- Bear with me while I speak, and after I have
spoken, mock on.
- "Is my complaint directed to man? Why
should I not be impatient ?
- Look at me and be astonished; clap your hand
over your mouth.
- When I think about this, I am terrified;
trembling seizes my body.
- Why do the wicked live on, growing old and
increasing in power ?
- They see their children established around
them, their offspring before their eyes.
- Their homes are safe and free from fear;
the rod of God is not upon them.
- Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows
calve and do not miscarry.
- They send forth their children as a flock;
their little ones dance about.
- They sing to the music of tambourine and
harp; they make merry to the sound of the flute.
- They spend their years in prosperity and
go down to the grave in peace.
- Yet they say to God, 'Leave us alone! We
have no desire to know your ways.
- Who is the Almighty, that we should serve
him? What would we gain by praying to him ?'
- But their prosperity is not in their own
hands, so I stand aloof from the counsel of the wicked.
- "Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked
snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in
his anger ?
- How often are they like straw before the
wind, like chaff swept away by a gale ?
- It is said,'God stores up a man's punishment
for his sons.' Let him repay the man himself, so that he will know it!
- Let his own eyes see his destruction; let
him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
- For what does he care about the family he
leaves behind when his allotted months come to an end ?
- "Can anyone teach knowledge to God,
since he judges even the highest ?
- One man dies in full vigor, completely secure
and at ease,
- his body well nourished, his bones rich with
marrow.
- Another man dies in bitterness of soul, never
having enjoyed anything good.
- Side by side they lie in the dust, and worms
cover them both.
- "I know full well what you are thinking,
the schemes by which you would wrong me.
- You say, 'Where now is the great man's house,
the tents where wicked men lived ?'
- Have you never questioned those who travel?
Have you paid no regard to their accounts --
- that the evil man is spared from the day
of calamity, that he is delivered from the day of wrath ?
- Who denounces his conduct to his face? Who
repays him for what he has done ?
- He is carried to the grave, and watch is
kept over his tomb.
- The soil in the valley is sweet to him; all
men follow after him, and a countless throng goes before him.
- "So how can you console me with your
nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood !"
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