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New International Version |   | |
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| | Job 21:1 | Then Job replied:
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| | Job 21:2 | "Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you give me.
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| | Job 21:3 | Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.
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| | Job 21:4 | "Is my complaint directed to man? Why should I not be impatient?
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| | Job 21:5 | Look at me and be astonished; clap your hand over your mouth.
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| | Job 21:6 | When I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body.
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| | Job 21:7 | Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?
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| | Job 21:8 | They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes.
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| | Job 21:9 | Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not upon them.
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| | Job 21:10 | Their bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry.
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| | Job 21:11 | They send forth their children as a flock; their little ones dance about.
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| | Job 21:12 | They sing to the music of tambourine and harp; they make merry to the sound of the flute.
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| | Job 21:13 | They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.
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| | Job 21:14 | Yet they say to God, `Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways.
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| | Job 21:15 | Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?'
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| | Job 21:16 | But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from the counsel of the wicked.
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| | Job 21:17 | "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?
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| | Job 21:18 | How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?
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| | Job 21:19 | [It is said,] `God stores up a man's punishment for his sons.' Let him repay the man himself, so that he will know it!
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| | Job 21:20 | Let his own eyes see his destruction; let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
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| | Job 21:21 | For what does he care about the family he leaves behind when his allotted months come to an end?
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| | Job 21:22 | "Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he judges even the highest?
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| | Job 21:23 | One man dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease,
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| | Job 21:24 | his body well nourished, his bones rich with marrow.
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| | Job 21:25 | Another man dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good.
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| | Job 21:26 | Side by side they lie in the dust, and worms cover them both.
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| | Job 21:27 | "I know full well what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me.
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| | Job 21:28 | You say, `Where now is the great man's house, the tents where wicked men lived?'
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| | Job 21:29 | Have you never questioned those who travel? Have you paid no regard to their accounts--
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| | Job 21:30 | that the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, that he is delivered from the day of wrath?
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| | Job 21:31 | Who denounces his conduct to his face? Who repays him for what he has done?
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| | Job 21:32 | He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.
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| | Job 21:33 | The soil in the valley is sweet to him; all men follow after him, and a countless throng goes before him.
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| | Job 21:34 | "So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!"
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