# Job 21 [[Job-20|← Job 20]] | [[Job]] | [[Job-22|Job 22 →]] *** ###### v1 Then Job answered, ###### v2 "Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation. ###### v3 Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on. ###### v4 As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn't I be impatient? ###### v5 Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth. ###### v6 When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh. ###### v7 "Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power? ###### v8 Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes. ###### v9 Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. ###### v10 Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don't miscarry. ###### v11 They send out their little ones like a flock. Their children dance. ###### v12 They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe. ###### v13 They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol. ###### v14 They tell God, 'Depart from us, for we don't want to know about your ways. ###### v15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?' ###### v16 Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me. ###### v17 "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger? ###### v18 How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away? ###### v19 You say, 'God lays up his iniquity for his children.' Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it. ###### v20 Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. ###### v21 For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off? ###### v22 "Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high? ###### v23 One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. ###### v24 His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened. ###### v25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good. ###### v26 They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them. ###### v27 "Behold, I know your thoughts, the plans with which you would wrong me. ###### v28 For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?' ###### v29 Haven't you asked wayfaring men? Don't you know their evidences, ###### v30 that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led out to the day of wrath? ###### v31 Who will declare his way to his face? Who will repay him what he has done? ###### v32 Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men will keep watch over the tomb. ###### v33 The clods of the valley will be sweet to him. All men will draw after him, as there were innumerable before him. ###### v34 So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?" *** [[Job-20|← Job 20]] | [[Job]] | [[Job-22|Job 22 →]]