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New Living Translation |   | |
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| | Job 21:1 | Then Job spoke again:
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| | Job 21:2 | "Listen closely to what I am saying. You can console me by listening to me.
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| | Job 21:3 | Bear with me, and let me speak. After I have spoken, you may mock me.
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| | Job 21:4 | "My complaint is with God, not with people. No wonder I'm so impatient.
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| | Job 21:5 | Look at me and be stunned. Put your hand over your mouth in shock.
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| | Job 21:6 | When I think about what I am saying, I shudder. My body trembles.
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| | Job 21:7 | "The truth is that the wicked live to a good old age. They grow old and wealthy.
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| | Job 21:8 | They live to see their children grow to maturity, and they enjoy their grandchildren.
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| | Job 21:9 | Their homes are safe from every fear, and God does not punish them.
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| | Job 21:10 | Their bulls never fail to breed. Their cows bear calves without miscarriage.
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| | Job 21:11 | Their children skip about like lambs in a flock of sheep.
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| | Job 21:12 | They sing with tambourine and harp. They make merry to the sound of the flute.
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| | Job 21:13 | They spend their days in prosperity; then they go down to the grave in peace.
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| | Job 21:14 | All this, even though they say to God, 'Go away. We want no part of you and your ways.
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| | Job 21:15 | Who is the Almighty, and why should we obey him? What good will it do us if we pray?'
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| | Job 21:16 | But their prosperity is not of their own doing, so I will have nothing to do with that kind of thinking.
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| | Job 21:17 | "Yet the wicked get away with it time and time again. They rarely have trouble, and God skips them when he distributes sorrows in his anger.
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| | Job 21:18 | Are they driven before the wind like straw? Are they carried away by the storm? Not at all!
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| | Job 21:19 | " 'Well,' you say, 'at least God will punish their children!' But I say that God should punish the ones who sin, not their children! Let them feel their own penalty.
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| | Job 21:20 | Let their own eyes see their destruction. Let them drink deeply of the anger of the Almighty.
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| | Job 21:21 | For when they are dead, they will not care what happens to their family.
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| | Job 21:22 | "But who can teach a lesson to God, the supreme Judge?
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| | Job 21:23 | One person dies in prosperity and security,
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| | Job 21:24 | the very picture of good health.
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| | Job 21:25 | Another person dies in bitter poverty, never having tasted the good life.
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| | Job 21:26 | Both alike are buried in the same dust, both eaten by the same worms.
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| | Job 21:27 | "Look, I know your thoughts. I know the schemes you plot against me.
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| | Job 21:28 | You will tell me of rich and wicked people who came to disaster because of their sins.
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| | Job 21:29 | But I tell you to ask those who have been around, and they can tell you the truth.
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| | Job 21:30 | Evil people are spared in times of calamity and are allowed to escape.
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| | Job 21:31 | No one rebukes them openly. No one repays them for what they have done.
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| | Job 21:32 | When they are carried to the grave, an honor guard keeps watch at their tomb.
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| | Job 21:33 | A great funeral procession goes to the cemetery. Many pay their respects as the body is laid to rest and the earth gives sweet repose.
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| | Job 21:34 | "How can you comfort me? All your explanations are wrong!"
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