21:1 Then Job answered:
21:2 “Listen carefully to my words;
let this be the consolation you offer me.
21:3 Bear with me and I will speak,
and after I have spoken you may mock.
21:4 Is my complaint against a man?
If so, why should I not be impatient?
21:5 Look at me and be appalled;
put your hands over your mouths.
21:6 For, when I think about this, I am terrified
and my body feels a shudder.
21:7 “Why do the wicked go on living,
grow old, even increase in power?
21:8 Their children are firmly established
in their presence,
their offspring before their eyes.
21:9 Their houses are safe and without fear;
and no rod of punishment from God is upon them.
21:10 Their bulls breed without fail;
their cows calve and do not miscarry.
21:11 They allow their children to run like a flock;
their little ones dance about.
21:12 They sing to the accompaniment of tambourine and harp,
and make merry to the sound of the flute.
21:13 They live out their years in prosperity
and go down to the grave in peace.
21:14 So they say to God, ‘Turn away from us!
We do not want to know your ways.
21:15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
What would we gain
if we were to pray to him?’
21:16 But their prosperity is not their own doing.
The counsel of the wicked is far from me!
21:17 “How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?
How often does their misfortune come upon them?
How often does God apportion pain to them in his anger?
21:18 How often are they like straw before the wind,
and like chaff swept away by a whirlwind?
21:19 You may say, ‘God stores up a man’s punishment for his children!’
Instead let him repay the man himself
so that he may know it!
21:20 Let his own eyes see his destruction;
let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.
21:21 For what is his interest in his home
after his death,
when the number of his months
has been broken off?
21:22 Can anyone teach God knowledge,
since he judges those that are on high?
21:23 “One man dies in his full vigor,
completely secure and prosperous,
21:24 his body well nourished,
and the marrow of his bones moist.
21:25 And another man dies in bitterness of soul,
never having tasted anything good.
21:26 Together they lie down in the dust,
and worms cover over them both.
21:27 “Yes, I know what you are thinking,
the schemes by which you would wrong me.
21:28 For you say,
‘Where now is the nobleman’s house,
and where are the tents in which the wicked lived?’
21:29 Have you never questioned those who travel the roads?
Do you not recognize their accounts –
21:30 that the evil man is spared
from the day of his misfortune,
that he is delivered
from the day of God’s wrath?
21:31 No one denounces his conduct to his face;
no one repays him for what he has done.
21:32 And when he is carried to the tombs,
and watch is kept over the funeral mound,
21:33 The clods of the torrent valley are sweet to him;
behind him everybody follows in procession,
and before him goes a countless throng.
21:34 So how can you console me with your futile words?
Nothing is left of your answers but deception!”
22:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:
22:2 “Is it to God that a strong man is of benefit?
Is it to him that even a wise man is profitable?
22:3 Is it of any special benefit to the Almighty
that you should be righteous,
or is it any gain to him
that you make your ways blameless?
22:4 Is it because of your piety that he rebukes you
and goes to judgment with you?
22:5 Is not your wickedness great
and is there no end to your iniquity?
22:6 “For you took pledges from your brothers
for no reason,
and you stripped the clothing from the naked.
22:7 You gave the weary no water to drink
and from the hungry you withheld food.
22:8 Although you were a powerful man, owning land,
an honored man living on it,
22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed,
and the arms of the orphans you crushed.
22:10 That is why snares surround you,
and why sudden fear terrifies you,
22:11 why it is so dark you cannot see,
and why a flood of water covers you.
22:12 “Is not God on high in heaven?
And see the lofty stars, how high they are!
22:13 But you have said, ‘What does God know?
Does he judge through such deep darkness?
22:14 Thick clouds are a veil for him, so he does not see us,
as he goes back and forth
in the vault of heaven.’
22:15 Will you keep to the old path
that evil men have walked –
22:16 men who were carried off before their time,
when the flood was poured out
on their foundations?
22:17 They were saying to God, ‘Turn away from us,’
and ‘What can the Almighty do to us?’
22:18 But it was he who filled their houses
with good things –
yet the counsel of the wicked
was far from me.
22:19 The righteous see their destruction and rejoice;
the innocent mock them scornfully, saying,
22:20 ‘Surely our enemies are destroyed,
and fire consumes their wealth.’
22:21 “Reconcile yourself with God,
and be at peace with him;
in this way your prosperity will be good.
22:22 Accept instruction from his mouth
and store up his words in your heart.
22:23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up;
if you remove wicked behavior far from your tent,
22:24 and throw your gold in the dust –
your gold of Ophir
among the rocks in the ravines –
22:25 then the Almighty himself will be your gold,
and the choicest silver for you.
22:26 Surely then you will delight yourself in the Almighty,
and will lift up your face toward God.
22:27 You will pray to him and he will hear you,
and you will fulfill your vows to him.
22:28 Whatever you decide on a matter,
it will be established for you,
and light will shine on your ways.
22:29 When people are brought low and you say
‘Lift them up!’
then he will save the downcast;
22:30 he will deliver even someone who is not innocent,
who will escape through the cleanness of your hands.”
23:1 Then Job answered:
23:2 “Even today my complaint is still bitter;
his hand is heavy despite my groaning.
23:3 O that I knew where I might find him,
that I could come to his place of residence!
23:4 I would lay out my case before him
and fill my mouth with arguments.
23:5 I would know with what words he would answer me,
and understand what he would say to me.
23:6 Would he contend with me with great power?
No, he would only pay attention to me.
23:7 There an upright person
could present his case before him,
and I would be delivered forever from my judge.
23:8 “If I go to the east, he is not there,
and to the west, yet I do not perceive him.
23:9 In the north when he is at work,
I do not see him;
when he turns to the south,
I see no trace of him.
23:10 But he knows the pathway that I take;
if he tested me, I would come forth like gold.
23:11 My feet have followed his steps closely;
I have kept to his way and have not turned aside.
23:12 I have not departed from the commands of his lips;
I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my allotted portion.
23:13 But he is unchangeable, and who can change him?
Whatever he has desired, he does.
23:14 For he fulfills his decree against me,
and many such things are his plans.
23:15 That is why I am terrified in his presence;
when I consider, I am afraid because of him.
23:16 Indeed, God has made my heart faint;
the Almighty has terrified me.
23:17 Yet I have not been silent because of the darkness,
because of the thick darkness
that covered my face.
24:1 “Why are times not appointed by the Almighty?
Why do those who know him not see his days?
24:2 Men move boundary stones;
they seize the flock and pasture them.
24:3 They drive away the orphan’s donkey;
they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.
24:4 They turn the needy from the pathway,
and the poor of the land hide themselves together.
24:5 Like wild donkeys in the desert
they go out to their labor,
seeking diligently for food;
the wasteland provides food for them
and for their children.
24:6 They reap fodder in the field,
and glean in the vineyard of the wicked.
24:7 They spend the night naked because they lack clothing;
they have no covering against the cold.
24:8 They are soaked by mountain rains
and huddle in the rocks because they lack shelter.
24:9 The fatherless child is snatched from the breast,
the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge.
24:10 They go about naked, without clothing,
and go hungry while they carry the sheaves.
24:11 They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees;
they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty.
24:12 From the city the dying groan,
and the wounded cry out for help,
but God charges no one with wrongdoing.
24:13 There are those who rebel against the light;
they do not know its ways
and they do not stay on its paths.
24:14 Before daybreak the murderer rises up;
he kills the poor and the needy;
in the night he is like a thief.
24:15 And the eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight,
thinking, ‘No eye can see me,’
and covers his face with a mask.
24:16 In the dark the robber breaks into houses,
but by day they shut themselves in;
they do not know the light.
24:17 For all of them, the morning is to them
like deep darkness;
they are friends with the terrors of darkness.
24:18 “You say, ‘He is foam on the face of the waters;
their portion of the land is cursed
so that no one goes to their vineyard.
24:19 The drought as well as the heat carry away
the melted snow;
so the grave takes away those who have sinned.
24:20 The womb forgets him,
the worm feasts on him,
no longer will he be remembered.
Like a tree, wickedness will be broken down.
24:21 He preys on the barren and childless woman,
and does not treat the widow well.
24:22 But God drags off the mighty by his power;
when God rises up against him, he has no faith in his life.
24:23 God may let them rest in a feeling of security,
but he is constantly watching all their ways.
24:24 They are exalted for a little while,
and then they are gone,
they are brought low like all others,
and gathered in,
and like a head of grain they are cut off.’
24:25 “If this is not so, who can prove me a liar
and reduce my words to nothing?”