Job 21:4-18

GOD’S WORD Translation

⁴ Am I complaining about a person?
Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
⁵ Look at me, and be shocked,
and put ⌞your⌟ hand over ⌞your⌟ mouth.
⁶ When I remember it, I’m terrified,
and shuddering seizes my body.

⁷ “Why do the wicked go on living, grow old,
and even become more powerful?
⁸ They see their children firmly established with them,
and they get to see their descendants.
⁹ Their homes are free from fear,
and God doesn’t use his rod on them.
¹⁰ Their bulls are fertile when they breed.
Their cows give birth to calves and never miscarry.
¹¹ They send their little children out ⌞to play⌟
like a flock of lambs,
and their children dance around.
¹² They sing with the tambourine and lyre,
and they are happy with the music of the flute.
¹³ They spend their days in happiness,
and they go peacefully to the grave.
¹⁴ But they say to God,
‘Leave us alone.
We don’t want to know your ways.
¹⁵ Who is the Almighty that we should serve him?
What do we gain if we pray to him?’
¹⁶ Anyhow, isn’t their happiness in their own power?
(The plan of the wicked is foreign to my way of thinking.)