Job 21:1--24:25

Job’s Reply to Zophar

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.

The Wicked Prosper

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!

How Often Do the Wicked Suffer?

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?

Death Levels Everything

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.

Futile Words, Deceptive Answers

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!”

Eliphaz’s Third Speech

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.”

Job’s Reply to Eliphaz

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.

The Inaccessibility and Power of God

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.

The Apparent Indifference of God

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?”