2
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"Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you offer me. |
3
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Bear with me and I will speak, and after I have spoken you may mock. |
4
|
Is my complaint against a man? If so, why should I not be impatient? |
5
|
Look at me and be appalled; put your hands over your mouths. |
6
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For, when I think about this, I am terrified and my body feels a shudder. |
7
|
"Why do the wicked go on living, grow old, even increase in power? |
8
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Their children are firmly established in their presence, their offspring before their eyes. |
9
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Their houses are safe and without fear; and no rod of punishment from God is upon them. |
10
|
Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and do not miscarry. |
11
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They allow their children to run like a flock; their little ones dance about. |
12
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They sing to the accompaniment of tambourine and harp, and make merry to the sound of the flute. |
13
|
They live out their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace. |
14
|
So they say to God, 'Turn away from us! We do not want to know your ways. |
15
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Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain if we were to pray to him?' |
16
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But their prosperity is not their own doing. The counsel of the wicked is far from me! |
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? |
18
|
How often are they like straw before the wind, and like chaff swept away by a whirlwind? |
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! |
20
|
Let his own eyes see his destruction; let him drink of the anger of the Almighty. |
21
|
For what is his interest in his home after his death, when the number of his months has been broken off? |
22
|
Can anyone teach God knowledge, since he judges those that are on high? |
23
|
"One man dies in his full vigor, completely secure and prosperous, |
24
|
his body well nourished, and the marrow of his bones moist. |
25
|
And another man dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted anything good. |
26
|
Together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover over them both. |
27
|
"Yes, I know what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me. |
28
|
For you say, 'Where now is the nobleman's house, and where are the tents in which the wicked lived?' |
29
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Have you never questioned those who travel the roads? Do you not recognize their accounts— |
30
|
that the evil man is spared from the day of his misfortune, that he is delivered from the day of God's wrath? |
31
|
No one denounces his conduct to his face; no one repays him for what he has done. |
32
|
And when he is carried to the tombs, and watch is kept over the funeral mound, |
33
|
The clods of the torrent valley are sweet to him; behind him everybody follows in procession, and before him goes a countless throng. |
34
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So how can you console me with your futile words? Nothing is left of your answers but deception!" |
Job 21:11 English Language Bible Words basic statistical display
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