Job 21:4-26

English Standard Version

⁴As for me, is my ^(A)complaint against man?
    Why should I not be impatient?
⁵Look at me and be appalled,
    and ^(B)lay your hand over your mouth.
⁶When I remember, I am dismayed,
    and shuddering seizes my flesh.
⁷^(C)Why do the wicked live,
    reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
⁸Their ^(D)offspring are established in their presence,
    and their descendants before their eyes.
⁹Their houses are ^(E)safe from fear,
    and ^(F)no rod of God is upon them.
¹⁰Their bull breeds without fail;
    their cow calves and ^(G)does not miscarry.
¹¹They send out their ^(H)little boys like a flock,
    and their children dance.
¹²They sing to ^(I)the tambourine and ^(J)the lyre
    and rejoice to the sound of ^(K)the pipe.
¹³They ^(L)spend their days in prosperity,
    and in ^(M)peace they go down to ^(N)Sheol.
¹⁴They say to God, ^(O)‘Depart from us!
    We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.
¹⁵^(P)What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
    And what ^(Q)profit do we get if we pray to him?’
¹⁶Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand?
    ^(R)The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

¹⁷“How often is it that ^(S)the lamp of the wicked is put out?
    That their calamity comes upon them?
    That God^[a] distributes pains in his anger?
¹⁸That they are like ^(T)straw before the wind,
    and like ^(U)chaff that the storm carries away?
¹⁹You say, ‘God ^(V)stores up their iniquity for their ^(W)children.’
    Let him pay it out to them, that they may ^(X)know it.
²⁰Let their own eyes see their destruction,
    and let them ^(Y)drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
²¹For what do they care for their houses after them,
    when ^(Z)the number of their months is cut off?
²²^(AA)Will any teach God knowledge,
    seeing that he ^(AB)judges those who are on high?
²³One dies in his full vigor,
    being wholly at ease and secure,
²⁴his pails^[b] full of milk
    and ^(AC)the marrow of his bones moist.
²⁵Another dies in ^(AD)bitterness of soul,
    never having tasted of prosperity.
²⁶They ^(AE)lie down alike in the dust,
    and ^(AF)the worms cover them.

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Footnotes

Job 21:17 Hebrew he
Job 21:24 The meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain

Job 24:1-4

English Standard Version

24 “Why are ^(A)not times of judgment ^(B)kept by the Almighty,
    and why do those who know him never see his ^(C)days?
²Some move ^(D)landmarks;
    they seize flocks and pasture them.
³They drive away the donkey of the fatherless;
    they ^(E)take the widow's ox for a pledge.
⁴They ^(F)thrust the poor off the road;
    the poor of the earth ^(G)all hide themselves.