| 21 | Job | ||
| 1 | Then Job answered: | Job. Jb.21.1-34 | |
| 2 | "Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation. | ||
| 3 | Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on. | ||
| 4 | As for me, is my complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient? | ||
| 5 | Look at me, and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth. | ||
| 6 | When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh. | ||
| 7 | Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? | ||
| 8 | Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes. | ||
| 9 | Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them. | ||
| 10 | Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves, and does not cast her calf. | ||
| 11 | They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. | ||
| 12 | They sing to the tambourine and the lyre, and rejoice to the sound of the pipe. | ||
| 13 | They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol. | ||
| 14 | They say to God, 'Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of your ways. | ||
| 15 | What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him? | ||
| 16 | Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? The counsel of the wicked is far from me. | ||
| 17 | "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God distributes pains in his anger? | ||
| 18 | That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away? | ||
| 19 | You say, 'God stores up their iniquity for their sons.' Let him recompense it to themselves, that they may know it. | ||
| 20 | Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty. | ||
| 21 | For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off? | ||
| 22 | Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those that are on high? | ||
| 23 | One dies in full prosperity, being wholly at ease and secure, | ||
| 24 | his body full of fat and the marrow of his bones moist. | ||
| 25 | Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of good. | ||
| 26 | They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them. | ||
| 27 | "Behold, I know your thoughts, and your schemes to wrong me. | ||
| 28 | For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked dwelt? | ||
| 29 | Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony | ||
| 30 | that the wicked man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath? | ||
| 31 | Who declares his way to his face, and who requites him for what he has done? | ||
| 32 | When he is borne to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb. | ||
| 33 | The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all men follow after him, and those who go before him are innumerable. | ||
| 34 | How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood." | ||
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