Job 21:4-18
Expanded Bible
4 “My complaint is not just against people;
I have reason to be impatient.
5 Look at me and be ·shocked [desolated];
put your hand over your mouth in shock.
6 When I think about this [C the success of the wicked], I am terribly afraid
and ·my body shakes [L trembling seizes my flesh].
7 Why ·do evil people live a long time [L are evil people allowed to live]?
They grow old and ·become more powerful [increase in strength].
8 They see their children ·around [L established before] them;
they watch them grow up.
9 Their homes are safe and without fear;
·God does not punish them [L God’s rod is not on them].
10 Their bulls never fail to mate;
their cows ·have healthy calves [L calve and have no miscarriages].
11 They send out their ·children [infants] like a flock [C they will have many children, a sign of blessing];
their ·little ones [children] dance about.
12 They sing to the music of tambourines and ·harps [lyres],
and the sound of the flute makes them ·happy [rejoice].
13 Evil people ·enjoy successful lives [L live out their days in prosperity]
and then go ·peacefully [in tranquility] to ·the grave [L Sheol].
14 They say to God, ‘·Leave us alone [Get away from me]!
We don’t ·want [desire] to know your ways.
15 Who is ·the Almighty [Shaddai] that we should serve him?
What would we gain by ·praying to [interceding with] him?’
16 ·The success of the wicked is not their own doing [or Is not the success/prosperity of the wicked in their control/hand?].
Their ·way of thinking [plan; counsel] is ·different [far] from ·mine [or his; C that is, God’s].
17 Yet how often are the lamps of evil people ·turned off [extinguished; C the implied answer is not often; Job questions the type of teaching found in Proverbs; Prov. 24:19–20]?
How often does ·trouble [calamity] come to them [Prov. 24:21–22]?
How often ·do they suffer God’s angry punishment [L does he deal out pain in his anger]?
18 ·How often are they [or Let them be] like straw in the wind
or like chaff that is blown away by a storm [Ps. 1:4]?
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