111 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
111 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
Job Replies: The Wicked Do Prosper
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# Chapter 21
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1. Then Job answered and said:
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2. "Keep listening to my words,
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and let this be your comfort.
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3. Bear with me, and I will speak,
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and after I have spoken, mock on.
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4. As for me, is my complaint against man?
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Why should I not be impatient?
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5. Look at me and be appalled,
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and lay your hand over your mouth.
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6. When I remember, I am dismayed,
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and shuddering seizes my flesh.
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7. Why do the wicked live,
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reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
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8. Their offspring are established in their presence,
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and their descendants before their eyes.
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9. Their houses are safe from fear,
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and no rod of God is upon them.
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10. Their bull breeds without fail;
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their cow calves and does not miscarry.
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11. They send out their little boys like a flock,
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and their children dance.
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12. They sing to the tambourine and the lyre
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and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
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13. They spend their days in prosperity,
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and in peace they go down to Sheol.
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14. They say to God, 'Depart from us!
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We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.
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15. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
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And what profit do we get if we pray to him?'
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16. Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand?
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The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
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17. "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out?
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That their calamity comes upon them?
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That God distributes pains in his anger?
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18. That they are like straw before the wind,
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and like chaff that the storm carries away?
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19. You say, 'God stores up their iniquity for their children.'
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Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.
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20. Let their own eyes see their destruction,
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and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
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21. For what do they care for their houses after them,
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when the number of their months is cut off?
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22. Will any teach God knowledge,
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seeing that he judges those who are on high?
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23. One dies in his full vigor,
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being wholly at ease and secure,
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24. his pails full of milk
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and the marrow of his bones moist.
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25. Another dies in bitterness of soul,
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never having tasted of prosperity.
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26. They lie down alike in the dust,
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and the worms cover them.
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27. "Behold, I know your thoughts
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and your schemes to wrong me.
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28. For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince?
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Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?'
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29. Have you not asked those who travel the roads,
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and do you not accept their testimony
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30. that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity,
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that he is rescued in the day of wrath?
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31. Who declares his way to his face,
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and who repays him for what he has done?
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32. When he is carried to the grave,
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watch is kept over his tomb.
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33. The clods of the valley are sweet to him;
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all mankind follows after him,
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and those who go before him are innumerable.
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34. How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?
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There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood."
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