Capítulo 21

1 - Then Job replied:

2 - "Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you give me.

3 - Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.

4 - "Is my complaint directed to a human being? Why should I not be impatient?

5 - Look at me and be appalled; clap your hand over your mouth.

6 - When I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body.

7 - Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?

8 - They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes.

9 - Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not on them.

10 - Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry.

11 - They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about.

12 - They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre; they make merry to the sound of the pipe.

13 - They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace. Or [in an instant]

14 - Yet they say to God, 'Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways.

15 - Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?'

16 - But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked.

17 - "Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in his anger?

18 - How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?

19 - It is said, 'God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.' Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!

20 - Let their own eyes see their destruction; let them drink the cup of the wrath of the Almighty.

21 - For what do they care about the families they leave behind when their allotted months come to an end?

22 - "Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he judges even the highest?

23 - One person dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease,

24 - well nourished in body, The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain. bones rich with marrow.

25 - Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good.

26 - Side by side they lie in the dust, and worms cover them both.

27 - "I know full well what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me.

28 - You say, 'Where now is the house of the great, the tents where the wicked lived?'

29 - Have you never questioned those who travel? Have you paid no regard to their accounts -

30 - that the wicked are spared from the day of calamity, that they are delivered from Or [wicked are reserved for the day of calamity, / that they are brought forth to] the day of wrath?

31 - Who denounces their conduct to their face? Who repays them for what they have done?

32 - They are carried to the grave, and watch is kept over their tombs.

33 - The soil in the valley is sweet to them; everyone follows after them, and a countless throng goes Or [them, / as a countless throng went] before them.

34 - "So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!"