Job Chapter 21 (ESV)

KJV ESV NIV NASB NLT

undefined Then Job answered and said:

undefined “Keep listening to my words, and let this be your comfort.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

undefined They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

undefined They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.

undefined They say to God, ‘Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.

undefined What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’

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

undefined “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?

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

undefined You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’ Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.

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

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

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

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

undefined his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist.

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

undefined They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.

undefined “Behold, I know your thoughts and your schemes to wrong me.

undefined For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’

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

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

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

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

undefined The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all mankind follows after him, and those who go before him are innumerable.

undefined How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”

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