Job 21

Job Replies: The Wicked Often Go Unpunished

1Then Job answered:

2“Listen carefully to my words,

and let this be your consolation.

3 # Job 16.10 Bear with me, and I will speak;

then after I have spoken, mock on.

4 # Job 6.11 As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals?

Why should I not be impatient?

5 # Judg 18.19; Job 29.9; 40.4 Look at me and be appalled,

and lay your hand upon your mouth.

6When I think of it I am dismayed,

and shuddering seizes my flesh.

7 # Job 12.6; Ps 73.3, 12; Jer 12.1 Why do the wicked live on,

reach old age, and grow mighty in power?

8 # Ps 17.14 Their children are established in their presence

and their offspring before their eyes.

9 # Ps 73.5 Their houses are safe from fear,

and no rod of God is upon them.

10 # Ex 23.26 Their bull breeds without fail;

their cow calves and never miscarries.

11They send out their little ones like a flock,

and their children dance around.

12 # Job 30.31; Ps 81.2 They sing to the tambourine and the lyre

and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

13 # Job 36.11 They spend their days in prosperity,

and in peace they go down to Sheol.

14 # Job 22.17; Prov 1.29 They say to God, ‘Leave us alone!

We do not desire to know your ways.

15 # Ex 5.2; Job 34.9; Mal 3.14 What is the Almighty,#21.15 Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai that we should serve him?

And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’

16 # Job 22.18 Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?#21.16 Heb in their hand

The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.

17 # Job 18.5, 6, 12 “How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?

How often does calamity come upon them?

How often does God#21.17 Heb he distribute pains in his anger?

18 # Ps 1.4 How often are they like straw before the wind

and like chaff that the storm carries away?

19 # Ex 20.5 You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’

Let it be paid back to them, so that they may know it.

20 # Ps 75.8; Isa 51.17; Jer 25.15; Rev 14.10 Let their own eyes see their destruction,

and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.#21.20 Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai

21For what do they care for their household after them,

when the number of their months is cut off?

22 # Isa 40.13, 14 Will any teach God knowledge,

seeing that he judges those who are on high?

23One dies in full prosperity,

being wholly at ease and secure,

24his loins full of milk

and the marrow of his bones moist.

25Another dies in bitterness of soul,

never having tasted of good.

26 # Job 24.20; Eccl 9.2 They lie down alike in the dust,

and the worms cover them.

27“Oh, I know your thoughts

and your schemes to wrong me.

28 # Job 8.22; 12.21 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?

Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’

29Have you not asked those who travel the roads,

and do you not accept their testimony,

30 # Job 20.28; Prov 16.4; Rom 2.5; 2 Pet 2.9 that the wicked are spared in the day of calamity

and are rescued in the day of wrath?

31Who declares their way to their face,

and who repays them for what they have done?

32When they are carried to the grave,

a watch is kept over their tomb.

33 # Job 3.19, 22; 17.16; 24.24 The clods of the valley are sweet to them;

everyone will follow after,

and those who went before are innumerable.

34How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?

There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”

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Job 21: NRSVUE

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