Job Chapter 21
1 Job answered:
2 “Listen carefully;
let this be your consolation.
3 Bear with me;
after I’ve spoken, you can mock me.
4 Am I just complaining about people?
Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
5 Be appalled at the way I look;
put your hand over your mouth in shock.
6 When I think about it,
I get scared and shaky.
7 Why do bad people keep on living
and become so powerful?
Job 21:1-7
8 Their descendants are secure in their presence;
their offspring are near them.
9 They have safe houses,
and God’s not beating them with a rod.
10 Their bulls breed without fail,
and their cows don’t miscarry.
11 They let out their little ones like a flock
to skip around and play.
12 They sing to the accompaniment of tambourines and harps
and celebrate with a flute.
13 They’e prosperous their whole life
and go down to Sheol in peace.
14 They tell God, ‘Get away!
We don’t want you telling us what to do.’
15 ‘Who is the Almighty that we should serve him anyway?’
‘What good would it do to pray?’
16 They think they produce their own prosperity;
I won’t have anything to do with such thinking. Job 21:8-16
17 “Yet how often do sinful people’s lamps get put out,
does calamity fall on them,
does God measure out destruction in his anger,
18 and they’re like straw in the wind,
like chaff in a storm?
19 You say, ‘Well, God stores up their sins for their children.’
Let him pay it back to the parents so they know it’s happening.
20 Let them experience their own destruction
and drink the Almighty’s wrath themselves.
Job 21:17-20
21 What do they care about their families after they die,
when they can’t talk anymore?
22 Can anybody teach God anything
since he judges even the most powerful?
23 They die in full strength,
completely at ease and satisfied.
24 Their bodies are healthy;
their bone marrow is moist,
25 while others die in bitterness
without tasting anything good.
26 They all lie down in the ground the same way
with maggots all over them.
Job 21:21-26
27 “I know what you’re thinking about:
schemes for doing me wrong.
28 You say, ‘Where’s the nobleman’s house?
Where are the tents sinners live in?’
29 Haven’t you asked travelers?
Don’t you believe what they tell you? Job 21:27-29
30 Sinners are reserved for disaster,
to be led out into the fury when it comes.
31 Who confronts them openly about their sins?
Who repays them for what they do?
32 When they’re carried to their graves,
an honor guard keeps watch over their tombs.
33 The soil in the valley gives them sweet repose;
a countless throng precedes and follows them,
paying their respects.
34 Do you think you can comfort me with clichés?