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The Book of Job

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- Chapter 21 -

Job's speech about the wicked

1
Then Job replied in this way:
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“Listen to what I say, all of you; that is the only thing that you can do that will comfort me.
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Be patient with me, and allow me to speak. Then, after I am finished speaking, you can continue to make fun of me.
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It is certainly not people against whom I am complaining, but God! And it is certainly right for me to be impatient!
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Look at me! Does what you see not cause you to be appalled and to put your hands over your mouths and say no more?
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When I think about what has happened to me, I am frightened and my entire body shakes.
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But allow me to ask this: ’Why do wicked people continue to live, and become prosperous, and not die until they are very old?’
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They see their children around them, and they watch them while they grow up and start to live in their own houses.
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Wicked people live in their own houses without being afraid, and God does not punish them.
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Their bulls always mate with the cows successfully, and the cows always give birth to calves and never miscarry.
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Wicked people send their young children outside to play, and the children jump around happily like lambs in a pasture.
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The children sing to the sound of tambourines and lyres, and they are happy to hear the sound of flutes.
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Wicked people enjoy having good things all the time that they are alive, and they die quietly and go down to the place of the dead.
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While they are alive, they say to God, ’Leave us alone; we do not care about how you desire us to conduct our lives!
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Why do you, God Almighty, think that we should serve you? What advantage do we get if we pray to you?’
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Wicked people think that they have become prosperous because of what they have done, but I do not want to have anything to do with their thinking.
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How often does it happen that wicked people die, without experiencing disasters? Does God ever punish them because he is angry with them?
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He does not blow them away as wind blows away straw; they are never carried off by a whirlwind.
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You say, ’When people have committed sins, God waits and punishes their children because of those sins;’ I say that God should punish those who sin, not their children, in order that the sinners may know that it is because of their own sins that they are being punished.
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I hope that wicked people will live to experience God destroying them, that they will experience God Almighty punishing them.
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After wicked people are dead, they are not at all concerned for their families who are still alive.
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Since God judges everyone, even those who are in heaven, who can teach him anything?
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Some people die while they are very healthy, while they are peaceful and not afraid of anything.
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Their bodies are fat; their bones are strong.
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Other people die being very miserable; they have never experienced good things happening to them.
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They die and are buried, and maggots cover their bodies. Everyone dies, so it is clear that dying is not always the punishment for being wicked.
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Listen, I know what you three are thinking, and I know the evil things that you plan to do to me.
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You say, ’What happened to the tents in which wicked people were living? The houses of evil rulers have been destroyed!’
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Have you never asked people who travel much? Do you not believe their reports about what they have seen,
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that wicked people usually do not suffer at the time when there are great disasters; that when God punishes people, someone rescues the wicked? that wicked people are the ones whom someone else rescues when God punishes people?
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There is no one who accuses wicked people, and there is no one who pays them back for all the evil things that they have done.
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When the corpses of wicked people are carried to their graves, people are put there to guard those graves.
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A huge number of people go to the grave site; some go in front of the procession and some come behind, and the wicked ones who have died surely feel good when people throw clods of dirt on their graves.
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So how can you comfort me by talking nonsense? Every reply that you give me is full of lies!”
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Job's speech about the wicked

1
Then Job answered,
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“Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.
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Allow me, and I also will speak. After I have spoken, mock on.
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As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
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Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
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When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
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“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
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Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.
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Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
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Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.
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They send out their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.
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They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
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They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.(a)
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They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about your ways.
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What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’
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Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
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“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?
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How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
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You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
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Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
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For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
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“Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high?
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One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
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His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.
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Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.
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They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
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“Behold, I know your thoughts, the plans with which you would wrong me.
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For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
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Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? Don’t you know their evidences,
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that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, that they are led out to the day of wrath?
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Who will declare his way to his face? Who will repay him what he has done?
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Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men will keep watch over the tomb.
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The clods of the valley will be sweet to him. All men will draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.
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So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”

Footnotes

(a)21:13 Sheol is the place of the dead.
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