Job 21 · Clearspring

Job: God Will Punish the Wicked

¹Then Job answered:+ ²“Listen carefully to my words; let this be your consolation to me.+ ³Bear with me while I speak; then, after I have spoken, you may go on mocking.+ ⁴Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?+ ⁵Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth.+ ⁶When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror.+ ⁷Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?+ ⁸Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes.+ ⁹Their homes are safe from fear; no rod of punishment from God is upon them.+ ¹⁰Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry.+ ¹¹They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,+ ¹²singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry at the sound of the flute.+ ¹³They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace.+ ¹⁴Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways.+ ¹⁵Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’+ ¹⁶Still, their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.+ ¹⁷How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?+ ¹⁸Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?+ ¹⁹It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.+ ²⁰Let his eyes see his own destruction; let him drink for himself the wrath of the Almighty.+ ²¹For what does he care about his household after him, when the number of his months has run out?+ ²²Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges those on high?+ ²³One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease.+ ²⁴His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.+ ²⁵Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity.+ ²⁶But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.+ ²⁷Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.+ ²⁸For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’+ ²⁹Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their reports?+ ³⁰Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath.+ ³¹Who denounces his behavior to his face? Who repays him for what he has done?+ ³²He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.+ ³³The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number.+ ³⁴So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.”+

Job: God Will Punish the Wicked

Study Job 21