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Job 21
1Then Job answered,
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2“Listen diligently to my speech.
- Let this be your consolation.
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3Allow me, and I also will speak;
- After I have spoken, mock on.
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4As for me, is my complaint to man?
- Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
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5Look at me, and be astonished.
- Lay your hand on your mouth.
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6When I remember, I am troubled.
- Horror takes hold of my flesh.
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7“Why do the wicked live,
- become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
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8Their child is established with them in their sight,
- their offspring before their eyes.
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9Their houses are safe from fear,
- neither is the rod of God upon them.
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10Their bulls breed without fail.
- Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.
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11They send forth their little ones like a flock.
- Their children dance.
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12They sing to the tambourine and harp,
- and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
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13They spend their days in prosperity.
- In an instant they go down to Sheol.
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14They tell God, ‘Depart from us,
- for we don’t want to know about your ways.
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15What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
- What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’
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16Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand.
- The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
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17“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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18How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind,
- as chaff that the storm carries away?
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19You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’
- Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
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20Let his own eyes see his destruction.
- Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
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21For what does he care for his house after him,
- when the number of his months is cut off?
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22“Shall any teach God knowledge,
- since he judges those who are high?
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23One dies in his full strength,
- being wholly at ease and quiet.
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24His pails are full of milk.
- The marrow of his bones is moistened.
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25Another dies in bitterness of soul,
- and never tastes of good.
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26They lie down alike in the dust.
- The worm covers them.
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27“Behold, I know your thoughts,
- the devices with which you would wrong me.
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28For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?
- Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
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29Haven’t you asked wayfaring men?
- Don’t you know their evidences,
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30that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity,
- That they are led forth to the day of wrath?
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31Who shall declare his way to his face?
- Who shall repay him what he has done?
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32Yet he will be borne to the grave.
- Men shall keep watch over the tomb.
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33The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him.
- All men shall draw after him,
- as there were innumerable before him.
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34So how can you comfort me with nonsense,
- because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”
