Job
21 Job said in reply:
2 “Listen carefully to what I say;
Let this be the consolation you give me.
4 Is my complaint directed toward a man?
If it were, would I* not lose patience?
5 Look at me and stare in amazement;
Put your hand over your mouth.
6 When I think about it, I am disturbed,
And my whole body shudders.
8 Their children are always in their presence,
And they get to see their descendants.
10 Their bulls breed without failure;
Their cows give birth and do not miscarry.
11 Their boys run outside just like a flock,
And their children skip about.
14 But they say to the true God, ‘Leave us alone!
We have no desire to know your ways.+
15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?+
What would we gain by being acquainted with him?’+
16 But I know that they do not control their own prosperity.+
The thinking* of the wicked is far from me.+
17 How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?+
How often does disaster come upon them?
How often does God deal out destruction to them in his anger?
18 Do they ever become like straw before the wind
And like chaff that a storm wind carries away?
19 God will store up a man’s punishment for his own sons.
But may God repay him so that he will know it.+
21 For what does he care about what happens to his house after him
23 One man dies in his full vigor+
When he is completely carefree and at ease,+
24 When his thighs are padded with fat
And his bones are strong.*
28 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prominent man,
And where is the tent in which the wicked one lived?’+
29 Have you not questioned travelers?
Do you not carefully study their observations,*
30 That an evil person is spared on the day of disaster
And rescued on the day of fury?
31 Who will confront him about his way,
And who will repay him for what he has done?
32 When he is carried to the graveyard,
A vigil will be kept over his tomb.
33 The clods of earth of the valley* will be sweet to him,+
And all mankind follows after him*+
Like the countless number before him.
34 So why offer me meaningless comfort?+
There is nothing but deceit in your answers!”