Job 21 — ULB

21Verse 1Then Job answered and said,^{Verse 2}“Listen carefully to my words,
and let this be the comfort you offer to me.
^{Verse 3}Put up with me, and I also will speak;
after I have spoken, mock on.
^{Verse 4}As for me, is my complaint to a person?
Why should I not be impatient?
^{Verse 5}Look at me and be astonished,
and lay your hand upon your mouth.
^{Verse 6}When I think about my sufferings, I am terrified,
and trembling seizes my body.
^{Verse 7}Why do wicked people continue to live,
become old, and grow mighty in power?
^{Verse 8}Their descendants are established with them in their sight,
and their offspring are established before their eyes.
^{Verse 9}Their houses are safe from fear;
neither is the rod of God on them.
^{Verse 10}Their bull breeds; it does not fail to do so;
their cow gives birth and does not lose her calf prematurely.
^{Verse 11}They send out their little ones like a flock,
and their children dance.
^{Verse 12}They sing to the tambourine and harp
and rejoice with the music of the flute.
^{Verse 13}They spend their days in prosperity,
and they go down quietly to Sheol.
^{Verse 14}They say to God, 'Depart from us
for we do not wish any knowledge of your ways.
^{Verse 15}What is the Almighty, that we should worship him?
What advantage would we get if we prayed to him?'
^{Verse 16}See, is not their prosperity in their own hands?
I have nothing to do with the advice of wicked people.
^{Verse 17}How often is it that the lamp of wicked people is put out,
or that their calamity comes upon them?
How often does it happen that God distributes sorrows to them in his anger?
^{Verse 18}How often is it that they become like stubble before the wind
or like chaff that the storm carries away?
^{Verse 19}You say, 'God lays up one's guilt for his children to pay.'
Let him pay it himself, so that he might know his guilt.
^{Verse 20}Let his eyes see his own destruction,
and let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
^{Verse 21}For what does he care about his family after him
when the number of his months is cut off?
^{Verse 22}Can anyone teach God knowledge
since he judges even those who are high?
^{Verse 23}One man dies in his full strength,
being completely quiet and at ease.
^{Verse 24}His body is full of milk,
and the marrow of his bones is moist.
^{Verse 25}Another man dies in bitterness of soul,
one who has never experienced anything good.
^{Verse 26}They lie down alike in the dust;
the worms cover them both.
^{Verse 27}See, I know your thoughts,
and the ways in which you wish to wrong me.
^{Verse 28}For you say, 'Where now is the house of the prince?
Where is the tent in which the wicked man once lived?'
^{Verse 29}Have you never asked traveling people?
Do you not know the evidence they can tell,
^{Verse 30}that the wicked man is kept from the day of calamity,
and that he is led away from the day of wrath?
^{Verse 31}Who will condemn the wicked man's way to his face?
Who will repay him for what he has done?
^{Verse 32}Yet he will be borne to the grave;
men will keep watch over his tomb.
^{Verse 33}The clods of the valley will be sweet to him;
all people will follow after him,
as there were innumerable people before him.
^{Verse 34}How then do you comfort me with nonsense,
since in your answers there is nothing but falsehood?”