Job - Chapter 21 - A Conservative Version
- Then Job answered, and said,
- Hear diligently my speech, And let this be your consolations.
- Allow me, and I also will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.
- As for me, is my complaint to man? And why should I not be impatient?
- Mark me, and be astonished, and lay your hand upon your mouth.
- Even when I remember, I am troubled, and horror takes hold on my flesh.
- Why do the wicked live, become old, yea, grow mighty in power?
- Their seed is established with them in their sight, and their offspring before their eyes.
- Their houses are safe from fear, nor is the rod of God upon them.
- Their bull breeds, and does not fail. Their cow brings forth safely, and does not miscarry.
- They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
- They sing to the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
- They spend their days in prosperity, and in a moment they go down to Sheol.
- And they say to God, Depart from us, for we do not desire the knowledge of thy ways.
- What is the Almighty that we should serve him? And what profit should we have, if we pray to him?
- Lo, [is] their prosperity not in their hand. (The counsel of the wicked is far from me.)
- How often is it that the lamp of the profane is put out, that their calamity comes upon them, that [God] distributes sorrows in his anger,
- that they are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carries away?
- [Ye say], God lays up his iniquity for his sons. Let him recompense it to himself that he may know it.
- Let his own eyes see his destruction, and let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
- For what does he care for his house after him when the number of his months is cut off?
- Shall any teach God knowledge, seeing he judges those who are high?
- One man dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
- His pails are full of milk, and the marrow of his bones is moistened.
- And another man dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.
- They lie down alike in the dust, and the worm covers them.
- Behold, I know your thoughts, and the devices with which ye would wrong me.
- For ye say, Where is the house of the prince? And where is the tent in which the wicked dwelt?
- Have ye not asked wayfaring men? And do ye not know their evidences,
- that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity? That they are led forth to the day of wrath?
- Who shall declare his way to his face? And who shall repay him what he has done?
- Yet he shall be borne to the grave, and men shall keep watch over the tomb.
- The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. And all men shall draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.
- How then ye comfort me in vain, seeing in your answers there remains falsehood?