Job 21:1-34 - Job's Seventh Speech: A Response To Zophar

¹ Then Job answered and said, ² "Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation. ³ Bear [with] me, and I myself will speak; then after my speaking you can mock.

⁴ [As for] me, [is] my complaint for human beings? And if [so], why cannot I be impatient? ⁵ Turn to me and be appalled, and place [your] hand on [your] mouth. ⁶ And when I think of [it], I am horrified, and shuddering seizes my flesh. ⁷ "Why do [the] wicked live, grow old, even grow mighty [in] power? ⁸ With them their offspring [are] established {before them}, and their descendants before their eyes. ⁹ Their houses [are] safe without fear, and the rod of God [is] not upon them. ¹⁰ His bull breeds and does not fail; his cow calves and does not miscarry. ¹¹ They send out their little ones like the flock, and their children dance around. ¹² They {sing} to [the] tambourine and lyre, and they rejoice to [the] sound of [the] long flute. ¹³ They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol. ¹⁴ And they say to God, 'Turn away from us, for we do not desire to know your ways. ¹⁵ Who [is] Shaddai that we should serve him, or what would we benefit when we plead with him?' ¹⁶ Look, their prosperity [is] not in their hands; the schemes of [the] wicked are repugnant to me.

¹⁷ "How often is [the] lamp of [the] wicked put out, and their disaster comes upon them? He distributes pains in his anger. ¹⁸ [How often] are they like straw {before} the wind, and like chaff that [the] storm carries away? ¹⁹ 'God stores up his iniquity for his children'? [Then] let him repay [it] to him that he may know. ²⁰ Let his eyes see his decay, and let him drink from the wrath of Shaddai, ²¹ for what {does he care for} his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?

²² Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he himself judges high ones? ²³ This [one] dies {in full prosperity}, {completely} at ease and secure. ²⁴ His vats are full [with] milk and the marrow of his bones is moist. ²⁵ Yet another dies with a bitter inner self and has not tasted prosperity. ²⁶ They lie down together in [the] dust, and maggots cover them.

²⁷ "Look, I know your thoughts and [the] schemes you devise against me. ²⁸ For you say, 'Where is the nobleman's house, and where [are] {the tents in which the wicked dwell}?' ²⁹ Do you not ask [those] traveling [the] roads, and do you not take notice of their accounts? ³⁰ Indeed, [the] wicked is spared from [the] day of disaster; he is delivered from [the] day of wrath. ³¹ Who denounces his way to his face? And who repays him [for what] he has done? ³² When he is brought to [the] grave, then someone stands guard over [the] tomb. ³³ [The] clods of [the] valley are sweet to him; everyone will follow after him, and {before} him {they are innumerable}.

³⁴ So how will you comfort me [with] emptiness, when fraud is left [in] your answers?"