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Job 21, RSV

21:1 Then Job answered:

21:2 "Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation.

21:3 Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.

21:4 As for me, is my complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient?

21:5 Look at me, and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth.

21:6 When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.

21:7 Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?

21:8 Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes.

21:9 Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them.

21:10 Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves, and does not cast her calf.

21:11 They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.

21:12 They sing to the tambourine and the lyre, and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

21:13 They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.

21:14 They say to God, `Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of thy ways.

21:15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?'

21:16 Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

21:17 "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God distributes pains in his anger?

21:18 That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?

21:19 You say, `God stores up their iniquity for their sons.' Let him recompense it to themselves, that they may know it.

21:20 Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

21:21 For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off?

21:22 Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those that are on high?

21:23 One dies in full prosperity, being wholly at ease and secure,

21:24 his body full of fat and the marrow of his bones moist.

21:25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of good.

21:26 They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.

21:27 "Behold, I know your thoughts, and your schemes to wrong me.

21:28 For you say, `Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked dwelt?'

21:29 Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony

21:30 that the wicked man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath?

21:31 Who declares his way to his face, and who requites him for what he has done?

21:32 When he is borne to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb.

21:33 The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all men follow after him, and those who go before him are innumerable.

21:34 How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood."

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