Job 21:1-34
21 But Job answered
2 “Do hear what I have to say,and let this be your comforting.
3 Bear me, and I myself will speak;and after I speak you shall make your fun.
4 Is my grievance against man?and how should I not be impatient?
5 Face toward me and stand aghastand lay your hands over your mouths!
6 * And if I bethink myself I am in consternation,and a shudder seizes my flesh.
7 How comes it that wrong-doers live,come to advanced age and are still notably robust?
8 * Their posterity is firmly established before them;their offspring is numerous under their eyes.
9 Their houses are at peace from dread,and God’s cudgel is not on them.
10 His bull covers and does not miss,his cow calves and does not slink.
11 They let out their brats like sheep and goats,and their children caper about.
12 * They sing with tambourine and lyreand make merry to the sound of the pipe.
13 They wear out their days in comfort,and all of a sudden they go down to the world below.
14 And they have said to the Deity ‘Get out of our way,we do not care to know your courses.
15 What is Shaddai that we should worship him,and what good should we do when we invoked him?’
16 Here it is not in their hands that their comfort lies,wrong-doers’ principles are far from him—
17 How often do wrong-doers’ lamps go outand their calamity come upon them,cords grip them by his anger,
18 Do they become like straw before a windand like chaff that a gale filches?
19 * Let him not lay his misfortune away for his sons;let him pay it up to himself and let him know it.
20 * Let his eyes see his calamityand let him drink ire of Shaddai.
21 For what concern has he for his family after him,when his number of months has been cut off?
22 —Should one teach the Deity knowledge,when it is he judges those on high?
23 This one dies in perfect soundness,all quiet and at ease,
24 His crocks are full of milkand the marrow of his bones has its drink,
25 And that one dies in bitter souland has never eaten a comfortable meal;
26 Together they lie down on the clayand maggots cover them over.
27 Here, I know your ideasand such designs as you contemplate against me,
28 That you say ‘Where is an aristocrat’s house?and where are wrong-doers’ dwellings?’
29 Have you not asked travelers,and do you not recognize their tokens?
30 ** That the bad man is kept back on the day of calamity,gets the better of the day of wrath?
31 And who tells him of his course to his face?and if he has done a thing who pays him back?
32 * And he is brought to burialand his mound is attended to.
33 Arroyo clods are sweet to him,and all men pour along after himand innumerable before him.
34 And how are you to comfort me with thin air,when your answers sift down to unreliability?”
Footnotes
^ 21:6 Or am convulsed
^ 21:8 Codd. They have with them their posterity firmly established before them, and their offspring are under their eyes
^ 21:12 Lit. lift with tambourine
^ 21:19 Codd. God lays his misfortune away for his sons?
^ 21:20 Codd. see his deceit (unc.)
^ 21:30 Codd. for the day of
^ 21:30 Codd. to the day of wrath he is brought
^ 21:32 Codd. and a stack of grain (unc.) is attended to
