Chapter 21
001
Then Job answered,
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"Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.
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Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on.
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As for me, is my complaint to woman? Why shouldn't I be impatient?
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Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
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When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
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"Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
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Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.
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Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
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Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don't miscarry.
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They send forth their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.
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They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
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They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.
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They tell God, 'Depart from us, for we don't want to know about your ways.
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What is the Almighty, that we should serve her? What profit should we have, if we pray to her?'
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Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
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"How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in her anger?
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How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
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You say, 'God lays up her iniquity for her children.' Let her recompense it to herself, that she may know it.
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Let her own eyes see her destruction. Let her drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
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For what does she care for her house after her, when the number of her months is cut off?
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"Shall any teach God knowledge, seeing she judges those who are high?
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One dies in her full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
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Hers pails are full of milk. The marrow of her bones is moistened.
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Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.
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They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
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"Behold, I know your thoughts, the devices with which you would wrong me.
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For you say, 'Where is the house of the princess? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?'
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Haven't you asked wayfaring women? Don't you know their evidences,
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that the evil woman is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led forth to the day of wrath?
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Who shall declare her way to her face? Who shall repay her what she has done?
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Yet she will be borne to the grave. Women shall keep watch over the tomb.
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The clods of the valley shall be sweet to her. All women shall draw after her, as there were innumerable before her.
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So how can you comfort me with nonsense, seeing that in your answers there remains only falsehood?"