Job 21

Why do the wicked live?

¹Then Job answered: ²Listen carefully to what I say, \q and let that be the comfort you give me. ³Bear with me while I speak; \q then, when I have finished, go on mocking. ⁴As for me, is my complaint against a human being? \q Why then should I not be impatient? ⁵Look at me and be appalled; \q put your hand over your mouth. ⁶When I think about it, I am terrified, \q and my whole body shudders. ⁷Why do the wicked go on living, \q growing old and growing ever more powerful? ⁸Their children are settled securely around them; \q their descendants grow up before their eyes. ⁹Their homes are safe and free from fear; \q the rod of God does not strike them. ¹⁰Their bulls breed without fail; \q their cows calve and never miscarry. ¹¹They let their little ones run out like a flock of lambs, \q and their children skip about. ¹²They sing to the tambourine and the lyre \q and make merry at the sound of the flute. ¹³They live out their days in prosperity \q and go down to Sheol in an instant.^{a 14}Yet they say to God, “Leave us alone! \q We have no wish to know your ways. ¹⁵Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? \q What good will it do us to pray to him?” ¹⁶Yet their prosperity is not in their own hands. \q The advice of the wicked is far from me.^{b 17}How often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? \q How often does disaster fall on them, \q or God deal out sorrows in his anger? ¹⁸How often are they like straw before the wind, \q like chaff swept away by a storm? ¹⁹You say, “God stores up their punishment for their children.” \q Let God repay the wicked themselves, so that they feel it! ²⁰Let them see their own ruin with their own eyes; \q let them drink the wrath of the Almighty. ²¹For what do they care about their family after they are gone, \q when the number of their months has run out? ²²Can anyone teach God knowledge, \q when he judges even those on high? ²³One person dies in full vigor, \q completely secure and at ease. ²⁴Their pails are full of milk, \q and their bones are rich with marrow.^{c 25}Another dies in bitterness of soul, \q never having tasted anything good. ²⁶They lie down alike in the dust, \q and worms cover them both. ²⁷Look, I know what you are thinking, \q the schemes you plot to wrong me. ²⁸For you say, “Where now is the prince’s house? \q Where are the tents where the wicked lived?” ²⁹Have you never asked people who travel the roads? \q Do you not accept what they report? ³⁰that the evil are spared on the day of disaster \q and led to safety on the day of wrath.^{d 31}Who confronts them to their face about the way they live? \q Who pays them back for what they have done? ³²They are carried in procession to the grave, \q and a watch is kept over their tomb. ³³The soil of the valley lies gently on them; \q everyone walks behind in the procession, \q and countless people go ahead.^{e 34}So how can you comfort me with empty words? \q Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood.