Job 21:7-26
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
7 Why do the wicked live on,
reach old age, and grow mighty in power?(A)
8 Their children are established in their presence
and their offspring before their eyes.(B)
9 Their houses are safe from fear,
and no rod of God is upon them.(C)
10 Their bull breeds without fail;
their cow calves and never miscarries.(D)
11 They send out their little ones like a flock,
and their children dance around.
12 They sing to the tambourine and the lyre
and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.(E)
13 They spend their days in prosperity,
and in peace they go down to Sheol.(F)
14 They say to God, ‘Leave us alone!
We do not desire to know your ways.(G)
15 What is the Almighty,[a] that we should serve him?
And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’(H)
16 Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?[b]
The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.(I)
17 “How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
How often does calamity come upon them?
How often does God[c] distribute pains in his anger?(J)
18 How often are they like straw before the wind
and like chaff that the storm carries away?(K)
19 You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’
Let it be paid back to them, so that they may know it.(L)
20 Let their own eyes see their destruction,
and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.[d](M)
21 For what do they care for their household after them,
when the number of their months is cut off?
22 Will any teach God knowledge,
seeing that he judges those who are on high?(N)
23 One dies in full prosperity,
being wholly at ease and secure,
24 his loins full of milk
and the marrow of his bones moist.
25 Another dies in bitterness of soul,
never having tasted of good.
26 They lie down alike in the dust,
and the worms cover them.(O)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.