Shared Word Translation
Job 21
Listen Carefully to My Words
Then Job answered and said:
“Listen carefully to my words,
and let this be your comfort to me.
Bear with me, and I will speak;
and after I have spoken, mock on.
Is my complaint directed to a human?
Why then should my spirit not be impatient?
Turn toward me and be appalled;
put your hand over your mouth.
When I remember, I am terrified,
and trembling seizes my flesh.
Why Do the Wicked Live?
Why do the wicked live,
grow old,
and even become mighty in power?
Their offspring are established with them in their presence,
and their descendants before their eyes.
Their houses are safe from fear,
and the rod of God is not upon them.
Their bull breeds and does not fail;
their cow calves and does not miscarry.
They send out their little ones like a flock,
and their children dance.
They lift their voice with tambourine and lyre
and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
They spend their days in prosperity
and in a moment go down to Sheol.
They Say to God, Depart from Us
Yet they say to God, ‘Depart from us;
we do not desire knowledge of your ways.
What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
And what would we gain if we plead with him?’
Look, their prosperity is not in their own hand.
The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
How Often Is the Lamp of the Wicked Put Out?
How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished,
or their calamity come upon them?
How often does he distribute pains in his anger?
Are they like straw before the wind,
or chaff that a storm steals away?
You say, ‘God stores up a man’s guilt for his children.’
Let him repay the man himself, so that he may know it.
Let his own eyes see his destruction,
and let him drink from the wrath of the Almighty.
For what does he care for his household after him
when the number of his months is cut off?
Can Anyone Teach God Knowledge?
Can anyone teach God knowledge,
since he judges those on high?
One dies in the fullness of his strength,
completely at ease and secure,
his sides full of fat
and the marrow of his bones moist.
Another dies with bitterness of soul,
never having tasted good.
Together they lie down in the dust,
and worms cover them.
Your Answers Remain False
Look, I know your thoughts
and the schemes by which you wrong me.
For you say, ‘Where is the house of the noble?
And where is the tent where the wicked lived?’
Have you not asked those who travel the roads?
Do you not recognize their signs,
that the evil person is spared in the day of calamity,
and carried away from the day of wrath?
Who declares his way to his face?
And who repays him for what he has done?
When he is carried to the grave,
a watch is kept over his tomb.
The clods of the valley are sweet to him;
all humanity follows after him,
and those before him are without number.
How then will you comfort me with emptiness,
when falsehood remains in your answers?”