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Job 21
Job
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Chapter 21
Facts give the lie
1
Job spoke next. He said:
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Listen, only listen to my words; this is the consolation you can offer me.
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Let me have my say; you may jeer when I have spoken.
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Do you think I bear a grudge against man? Have I no reason to be out of patience?
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Hear what I have to say, and you will be dumbfounded, will place your hands over your mouths.
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I myself am appalled at the very thought, and my flesh begins to shudder.
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Why do the wicked still live on, their power increasing with their age?
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They see their posterity ensured, and their offspring grow before their eyes.
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The peace of their houses has nothing to fear, the rod that God wields is not for them.
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No mishap with their bulls at breeding-time, nor miscarriage with their cows at calving.
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They let their infants frisk like lambs, their children dance like deer.
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They sing to the tambourine and the lyre, and rejoice to the sound of the flute.
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They end their lives in happiness and go down in peace to Sheol.
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Yet these were the ones who said to God, ‘Go away! We do not choose to learn your ways.
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What is the point of our serving Shaddai? What profit should we get from praying to him?’
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Is it not true, they held their fortune in their own two hands, and in their counsels, left no room for God?
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Do we often see a wicked man’s light put out, or disaster overtaking him, or all his goods destroyed by the wrath of God?
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How often do we see him harassed like a straw before the wind, or swept off like chaff before a gale?
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God, you say, reserves the man’s punishment for his children. No! Let him bear the penalty himself, and suffer under it!
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Let him see his ruin with his own eyes, and himself drink the anger of Shaddai.
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When he has gone, how can the fortunes of his House affect him, when the number of his months is cut off?
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But who can give lessons in wisdom to God, to him who is judge of those on high?
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And again: one man dies in the fullness of his strength, in all possible happiness and ease,
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with his thighs all heavy with fat, and the marrow of his bones undried.
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Another dies with bitterness in his heart, never having tasted happiness.
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Together now they lie in the dust with worms for covering.
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I know well what is in your mind, the spiteful thoughts you entertain about me.
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‘What has become of the great lord’s house,’ you say ‘where is the tent where the wicked lived?’
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Have you never asked those that have travelled, or have you misunderstood the tale they told,
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‘The wicked man is spared for the day of disaster, and carried off in the day of wrath’?
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But who is there then to accuse him to his face for his deeds, and pay him back for what he has done,
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when he is on his way to his burial, when men are watching at his grave.
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The clods of the valley are laid gently on him, and a whole procession walks behind him.
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So what sense is there in your empty consolation? What nonsense are your answers!
Chapters of Job
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