Job Chapter 21
Click Here to Listen to This Chapter
Return to Index
- Then Job answered, and said:
- Hear, I beseech you, my words, and do penance.
- Suffer me, and I will speak, and after, if you please, laugh at my words.
- Is my debate against man, that I should not have just reason to be troubled?
- Hearken to me and be astonished, and lay your finger on your mouth.
- As for me, when I remember, I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh.
- Why then do the wicked live, are they advanced, and strengthened with riches?
- Their seed continueth before them, a multitude of kinsmen, and of children's children in their sight.
- Their houses are secure and peaceable, and the rod of God is not upon them.
- Their cattle have conceived, and failed not: their cow has calved, and is not deprived of her fruit.
- Their little ones go out like a flock, and their children dance and play.
- They take the timbrel, and the harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.
- They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment they go down to hell.
- Who have said to God: Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.
- Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what doth it profit us if we pray to him?
- Yet because their good things are not in their hand, may the counsel of the wicked be far from me.
- How often shall the lamp of the wicked be put out, and a deluge come upon them, and he shall distribute the sorrows of his wrath?
- They shall be as chaff before the face of the wind, and as ashes which the whirlwind scattereth.
- God shall lay up the sorrow of the father for his children: and when he shall repay, then shall he know.
- His eyes shall see his own destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
- For what is it to him what befalleth his house after him: and if the number of his months be diminished by one half?
- Shall any one teach God knowledge, who judgeth those that are high?
- One man dieth strong, and hale, rich and happy.
- His bowels are full of fat, and his bones are moistened with marrow.
- But another dieth in bitterness of soul without any riches:
- And yet they shall sleep together in the dust, and worms shall cover them.
- Surely I know your thoughts, and your unjust judgments against me.
- For you say: Where is the house of the prince ? and where are the dwelling places of the wicked?
- Ask any one of them that go by the way, and you shall perceive that he knoweth these same things.
- Because the wicked man is reserved to the day of destruction, and he shall be brought to the day of wrath.
- Who shall reprove his way to his face? and who shall repay him what he hath done?
- He shall be brought to the graves, and shall watch in the heap of the dead.
- He hath been acceptable to the gravel of Cocytus, and he shall draw every man after him, and there are innumerable before him.
- How then do ye comfort me in vain, whereas your answer is shewn to be repugnant to truth ?