Job Chapter 21 — Job Speaks on the Prosperity of the Wicked

¹Then Job answered,

²“Listen diligently to my speech.

³Allow me, and I also will speak.

⁴As for me, is my complaint to man?

⁵Look at me, and be astonished.

⁶When I remember, I am troubled.

⁷“Why do the wicked live,

⁸Their child is established with them in their sight,

⁹Their houses are safe from fear,

¹⁰Their bulls breed without fail.

¹¹They send out their little ones like a flock.

¹²They sing to the tambourine and harp,

¹³They spend their days in prosperity.

¹⁴They tell God, ‘Depart from us,

¹⁵What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?

¹⁶Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand.

¹⁷“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out,

¹⁸How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind,

¹⁹You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’

²⁰Let his own eyes see his destruction.

²¹For what does he care for his house after him,

²²“Shall any teach God knowledge,

²³One dies in his full strength,

²⁴His pails are full of milk.

²⁵Another dies in bitterness of soul,

²⁶They lie down alike in the dust.

²⁷“Behold, I know your thoughts,

²⁸For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?

²⁹Haven’t you asked wayfaring men?

³⁰that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity,

³¹Who will declare his way to his face?

³²Yet he will be borne to the grave.

³³The clods of the valley will be sweet to him.

³⁴So how can you comfort me with nonsense,