Job 21:4-18

Evangelical Heritage Version

⁴ Is my complaint against a man?
Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
⁵ Look at me and be shocked,^[a]
and then put your hand over your mouth.
⁶ When I remember all this, I am terrified,^[b]
and horror makes my flesh tremble.
⁷ Why do the wicked keep living,
reach old age,
and even become stronger?
⁸ Their descendants are firmly established in their presence,
and they live long enough to see their offspring.
⁹ Their houses are safe from fear,
and God’s rod does not strike them.
¹⁰ The wicked man’s bulls breed without failing.
His cows deliver calves without miscarrying.
¹¹ Their toddlers frolic like flocks,
and their children dance around.
¹² They sing to the accompaniment of hand drums and lyres.
They celebrate to the sound of a flute.
¹³ They finish out^[c] their days in prosperity.
Then they go down to the grave in a moment.
¹⁴ They say to God, “Keep away from us.
We know your ways, but we find no pleasure in them.”
¹⁵ “Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him,
and what benefit do we gain from pleading with him?”
¹⁶ But I know that their prosperity is not in their own hands,
so I have distanced myself from the way of life^[d] of the wicked.

¹⁷ How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?
How often does the disaster they deserve come upon them?
How often does God in his anger dole out their fair share of pain?
¹⁸ How often are they like straw blown by the wind,
like chaff that a windstorm whisks away?