Job Answers: Why Do the Wicked Prosper?
Job answers with the evidence his friends ignore: the wicked do grow old and powerful, their children dance, and they die peacefully after telling God to leave them alone. Full and bitter alike lie down in the dust. Their comfort, he says, is falsehood.
21 1Then Job answered: 2"Listen carefully to my words, and let this be the comfort you offer me. 3Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, you may go on mocking. 4As for me, is my complaint against a mere man? Why should I not lose my patience? 5Look at me and be appalled, and put your hand over your mouth. 6When I remember it, I am terrified, and shuddering grips my flesh. 7Why do the wicked go on living, growing old and increasing in power? 8Their children are settled and secure with them before their eyes, and their offspring before their sight. 9Their houses are safe and free from fear, and no rod of God falls upon them. 10Their bull breeds and never fails; their cow calves and does not miscarry. 11They let their little ones run free like a flock, and their children skip about. 12They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and celebrate to the sound of the pipe. 13They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to the grave. 14Yet they say to God, 'Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. 15What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what would we gain by praying to him?' 16But their prosperity is not in their own hands; I want nothing to do with the counsel of the wicked. 17How often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does their disaster fall upon them? How often does God deal out pains in his anger? 18How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff that a storm sweeps away? 19You say, 'God stores up a man's punishment for his children.' Let him repay the man himself, so that he learns it. 20Let his own eyes see his ruin, and let him drink the wrath of the Almighty. 21For what does he care about his household after him, when his months are cut short? 22Can anyone teach God knowledge, since it is he who judges those on high? 23One person dies in full vigor, wholly at ease and secure, 24his body well nourished and the marrow of his bones still moist. 25Another dies with a bitter soul, never having tasted any good. 26Together they lie down in the dust, and the worms cover them both. 27Look, I know your thoughts, and your schemes to wrong me. 28For you say, 'Where now is the house of the noble? Where is the tent where the wicked lived?' 29Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Will you not accept the proof they give, 30that the evil man is spared in the day of disaster, that he is delivered in the day of wrath? 31Who confronts him to his face for his conduct, and who repays him for what he has done? 32He is carried to the grave, and a watch is kept over his tomb. 33The soil of the valley is sweet to him; everyone follows after him, and those before him are beyond counting. 34So how can you comfort me with empty words? Your answers are nothing but falsehood."
