Job 21:4-18
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
4 As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals?
Why should I not be impatient?(A)
5 Look at me and be appalled,
and lay your hand upon your mouth.(B)
6 When I think of it I am dismayed,
and shuddering seizes my flesh.
7 Why do the wicked live on,
reach old age, and grow mighty in power?(C)
8 Their children are established in their presence
and their offspring before their eyes.(D)
9 Their houses are safe from fear,
and no rod of God is upon them.(E)
10 Their bull breeds without fail;
their cow calves and never miscarries.(F)
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.(G)
13 They spend their days in prosperity,
and in peace they go down to Sheol.(H)
14 They say to God, ‘Leave us alone!
We do not desire to know your ways.(I)
15 What is the Almighty,[a] that we should serve him?
And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’(J)
16 Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?[b]
The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.(K)
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?(L)
18 How often are they like straw before the wind
and like chaff that the storm carries away?(M)
Job 21:4-18
New Living Translation
4 “My complaint is with God, not with people.
I have good reason to be so impatient.
5 Look at me and be stunned.
Put your hand over your mouth in shock.
6 When I think about what I am saying, I shudder.
My body trembles.
7 “Why do the wicked prosper,
growing old and powerful?
8 They live to see their children grow up and settle down,
and they enjoy their grandchildren.
9 Their homes are safe from every fear,
and God does not punish them.
10 Their bulls never fail to breed.
Their cows bear calves and never miscarry.
11 They let their children frisk about like lambs.
Their little ones skip and dance.
12 They sing with tambourine and harp.
They celebrate to the sound of the flute.
13 They spend their days in prosperity,
then go down to the grave[a] in peace.
14 And yet they say to God, ‘Go away.
We want no part of you and your ways.
15 Who is the Almighty, and why should we obey him?
What good will it do us to pray?’
16 (They think their prosperity is of their own doing,
but I will have nothing to do with that kind of thinking.)
17 “Yet the light of the wicked never seems to be extinguished.
Do they ever have trouble?
Does God distribute sorrows to them in anger?
18 Are they driven before the wind like straw?
Are they carried away by the storm like chaff?
Not at all!
Footnotes
- 21:13 Hebrew to Sheol.
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.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
