1 Job replied:
2 Listen at least to my words,
enough of your consolation.
3 Bear with me while I speak;
and then you can mock.
4 Is my grudge against humans?
Why then should I not be impatient?
5 Look at me and be appalled;
cover your mouth for a moment.
6 When I think about this I am troubled
and trembling seizes my body.
Job: It’s well for the wicked!
7 Why do the wicked live,
increase in age and in power?
8 Their descendants flourish in their sight,
their kinsfolk and their offspring.
9 Their homes are safe, free from fear;
they do not feel the scourge of God.
10 Their bulls breed without fail;
their cows calve and do not miscarry.
11 They have children as they have lambs
their little ones dance like deer.
12 They sing to the rhythm of timbrel and harp;
make merry to the sound of the flute.
13 They live out their days in happiness
and go down to Sheol in peace.
14 Yet they said to God, “Go away!
We have no desire to learn your way.
15 Who is the Almighty that we should serve him?
What will it profit us if we pray to him?”
16 Though they planned everything far from God
prosperity is in their hands.
17 How often is their lamp put out?
How often does calamity befall them?
How often does God’s anger wipe them out?
18 How often are they like straw before the wind,
like chaff which the storm sweeps away?
19 You say, “His children will pay for his sin.”
Let the man himself pay for his iniquity;
20 let his own eyes see his misfortune;
let him drink the wrath of the Almighty!
21 What does he care about his family when he dies,
when his months have been cut off?
22 Can anyone teach God knowledge,
since he judges even the highest?
23 One man dies in full vigor,
at ease and completely secure;
24 full and nourished is his figure,
rich in marrow are his bones.
25 Another dies in bitterness,
never having enjoyed happiness.
26 But in the dust they lie down
side by side, covered with worms.
27 I know your thoughts fully
and your schemes about me.
28 For you say, “Where is the house of the great prince?
Where is the tent of the wicked?”
29 Have you never asked the travel ers,
or have you misunderstood what they say –
30 that the evil man is spared from cala mity,
delivered from the day of God’s fury?
31 Who will denounce his conduct to his face
or pay him back for what he has done?
32 When people have carried him to the grave his image watches from his tomb.
33 The soft earth is sweet to him;
behind him you see everyone follow
and before him a countless horde.
34 How then can you console me with your nonsense?
Pure falsehood is all you have said.
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Comments Job, Chapter 21
• 21.7 Here, too, we recognize Jere miah’s complaint in 12:1 and the questions raised in Psalm 73. In the Old Testament the just are scandalized by the prosperity of the wicked, because it seems to deny God’s justice. Is it true, as we sometimes hear, that death is the ultimate justice?