en_cjb - Job 21 - Ozzuu Bible

¹ Then Iyov responded:

² “Listen carefully to my words; let this be the comfort you give me.

³ Bear with me as I speak; then, after I have spoken, you can go on mocking.

⁴ “As for me, is my complaint merely to other people? Don’t I have grounds for being short-tempered?

⁵ Look at me, and be appalled; cover your mouth with your hand!

⁶ Whenever I recall it, I am in shock; my whole body shudders.

⁷ “Why do the wicked go on living, grow old and keep increasing their power?

⁸ They see their children settled with them, their posterity assured.

⁹ Their houses are safe, with nothing to fear; God’s rod is not on them.

¹⁰ Their bulls are fertile without fail, their cows get pregnant and don’t miscarry.

¹¹ They produce flocks of babies, and their children dance around.

¹² They sing with tambourines and lyres and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

¹³ They spend their days in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.

¹⁴ “Yet to God they said, ‘Leave us alone! We don’t want to know about your ways.

¹⁵ What is Shaddai, that we should serve him? What do we gain if we pray to him?’

¹⁶ Isn’t their prosperity already theirs? The plans of the wicked are far from me.

¹⁷ “How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? How often does their calamity come upon them? How often does [God] deal out pain in his anger,

¹⁸ to make them like straw in the wind, like chaff carried off by a storm?

¹⁹ God lays up for their children [the punishment for their] iniquity. He should lay it on [the wicked] themselves, so that they can feel it!

²⁰ Let their own eyes see their own destruction and themselves drink the wrath of Shaddai.

²¹ What joy can they have in their family after them, given that their months are numbered?

²² “Can anyone teach God knowledge? After all, he judges those who are on high.

²³ One person dies in his full strength, completely at ease and content;

²⁴ his pails are full of milk, and the marrow in his bones is moist.

²⁵ Another dies with embittered heart, never having tasted happiness.

²⁶ They lie down alike in the dust, and the worm covers them both.

²⁷ “Look, I know what you are thinking and your plans to do me wrong.

²⁸ You ask, ‘Where is the great man’s house? Where is the tent where the wicked once lived?’

²⁹ Haven’t you ever questioned travelers? Don’t you accept their testimony

³⁰ that the evil man is saved on the day of disaster, rescued on the day of wrath?

³¹ So who will confront him with his ways? Who will repay him for what he has done?

³² For he is carried off to the grave, people keep watch over his tomb,

³³ the clods of the valley are sweet to him; so everyone follows his example, just as before him were countless others.

³⁴ “Why offer me such meaningless comfort? Of your answers, only the perfidy remains.”