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From the Blue Letter Bible
New International Version
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| Job 21:1 | Then Job replied: |
| Job 21:2 | “Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you give me. |
| Job 21:3 | Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on. |
| Job 21:4 | “Is my complaint directed to a human being? Why should I not be impatient? |
| Job 21:5 | Look at me and be appalled; clap your hand over your mouth. |
| Job 21:6 | When I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body. |
| Job 21:7 | Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? |
| Job 21:8 | They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes. |
| Job 21:9 | Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not on them. |
| Job 21:10 | Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry. |
| Job 21:11 | They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about. |
| Job 21:12 | They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre; they make merry to the sound of the pipe. |
| Job 21:13 | They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace. [fn1] |
| Job 21:14 | Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. |
| Job 21:15 | Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?’ |
| Job 21:16 | But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked. |
| Job 21:17 | “Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in his anger? |
| Job 21:18 | How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale? |
| Job 21:19 | It is said, ‘God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.’ Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it! |
| Job 21:20 | Let their own eyes see their destruction; let them drink the cup of the wrath of the Almighty. |
| Job 21:21 | For what do they care about the families they leave behind when their allotted months come to an end? |
| Job 21:22 | “Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he judges even the highest? |
| Job 21:23 | One person dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease, |
| Job 21:24 | well nourished in body, [fn2] bones rich with marrow. |
| Job 21:25 | Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good. |
| Job 21:26 | Side by side they lie in the dust, and worms cover them both. |
| Job 21:27 | “I know full well what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me. |
| Job 21:28 | You say, ‘Where now is the house of the great, the tents where the wicked lived?’ |
| Job 21:29 | Have you never questioned those who travel? Have you paid no regard to their accounts— |
| Job 21:30 | that the wicked are spared from the day of calamity, that they are delivered from [fn3] the day of wrath? |
| Job 21:31 | Who denounces their conduct to their face? Who repays them for what they have done? |
| Job 21:32 | They are carried to the grave, and watch is kept over their tombs. |
| Job 21:33 | The soil in the valley is sweet to them; everyone follows after them, and a countless throng goes [fn4] before them. |
| Job 21:34 | “So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!” |
| Footnotes: | |
Or in an instant |
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The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain. |
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Or wicked are reserved for the day of calamity, / that they are brought forth to |
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Or them, / as a countless throng went |
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| Job 21 | ||
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