Job 21 - ESV Bible - Then Job answered and said: "Keep listening to my...

1 Then Job answered and said:

2 ¹"Keep listening to my words, and let this be your comfort.

3 Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, ²mock on.

4 As for me, is my ³complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient?

5 Look at me and be appalled, and ⁴lay your hand over your mouth.

6 When I remember, I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.

7 ⁵Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?

8 Their ⁶offspring are established in their presence, and their descendants before their eyes.

9 Their houses are ⁷safe from fear, and ⁸no rod of God is upon them.

10 Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and ⁹does not miscarry.

11 They send out their ¹⁰little boys like a flock, and their children dance.

12 They sing to ¹¹the tambourine and ¹²the lyre and rejoice to the sound of ¹³the pipe.

13 They ¹⁴spend their days in prosperity, and in ¹⁵peace they go down to ¹⁶Sheol.

14 They say to God, ¹⁷'Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.

15 ¹⁸What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what ¹⁹profit do we get if we pray to him?'

16 Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? ²⁰The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

17 "How often is it that ²¹the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God^a distributes pains in his anger?

18 That they are like ²²straw before the wind, and like ²³chaff that the storm carries away?

19 You say, 'God ²⁴stores up their iniquity for their ²⁵children.' Let him pay it out to them, that they may ²⁶know it.

20 Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them ²⁷drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

21 For what do they care for their houses after them, when ²⁸the number of their months is cut off?

22 ²⁹Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he ³⁰judges those who are on high?

23 One dies in his full vigor, being wholly at ease and secure,

24 his pails^b full of milk and ³¹the marrow of his bones moist.

25 Another dies in ³²bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity.

26 They ³³lie down alike in the dust, and ³⁴the worms cover them.

27 "Behold, I know your thoughts and your schemes to wrong me.

28 For you say, ³⁵'Where is the house of the prince? Where is ³⁶the tent in which the wicked lived?'

29 Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony

30 that ³⁷the evil man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath?

31 Who declares his way ³⁸to his face, and who ³⁹repays him for what he has done?

32 When he is ⁴⁰carried to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb.

33 ⁴¹The clods of the valley are sweet to him; ⁴²all mankind follows 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."

Job 21 ESV