Job Chapter 21 of 42 about 3 min read

Job 21

What happens in this chapter

Chapter summary coming soon.

Verse 1. Then Job answered:

Verse 2. “Listen carefully to my words; let this be your consolation to me.

Verse 3. Bear with me while I speak; then, after I have spoken, you may go on mocking.

Verse 4. Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?

Verse 5. Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth.

Verse 6. When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror.

Verse 7. Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?

Verse 8. Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes.

Verse 9. Their homes are safe from fear; no rod of punishment from God is upon them.

Verse 10. Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry.

Verse 11. They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,

Verse 12. singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry at the sound of the flute.

Verse 13. They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace.

Verse 14. Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways.

Verse 15. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’

Verse 16. Still, their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.

Verse 17. How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?

Verse 18. Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?

Verse 19. It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.

Verse 20. Let his eyes see his own destruction; let him drink for himself the wrath of the Almighty.

Verse 21. For what does he care about his household after him, when the number of his months has run out?

Verse 22. Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges those on high?

Verse 23. One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease.

Verse 24. His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.

Verse 25. Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity.

Verse 26. But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.

Verse 27. Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.

Verse 28. For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’

Verse 29. Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their reports?

Verse 30. Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath.

Verse 31. Who denounces his behavior to his face? Who repays him for what he has done?

Verse 32. He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.

Verse 33. The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number.

Verse 34. So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.”