Job 21 

Job 21:1 Then Job answered and said:

Job 21:2 Listen intently to my words; let this be the consolation you offer.

Job 21:3 Bear with me while I speak; then after I have spoken, you may continue mocking.

Job 21:4 As for me, is my complaint against a human being? Then why shouldn’t I be impatient?

Job 21:5 Look at me and shudder; put your hand over your mouth.

Job 21:6 When I think about it, I am terrified, and my body trembles in horror.

Job 21:7 Why do the wicked continue to live, growing old and becoming powerful?

Job 21:8 Their children are established while they are still alive, and their descendants, before their eyes.

Job 21:9 Their homes are secure and free of fear; no rod from God strikes them.

Job 21:10 Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and do not miscarry.

Job 21:11 They let their little ones run around like lambs; their children skip about,

Job 21:12 singing to the tambourine and lyre and rejoicing at the sound of the flute.

Job 21:13 They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace.

Job 21:14 Yet they say to God, “Leave us alone! We don’t want to know your ways.

Job 21:15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him, and what will we gain by pleading with him?”

Job 21:16 But their prosperity is not of their own doing. The counsel of the wicked is far from me!

Job 21:17 How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does he apportion destruction in his anger?

Job 21:18 Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff a storm sweeps away?

Job 21:19 God reserves a person’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the person himself, so that he may know it.

Job 21:20 Let his own eyes see his demise; let him drink from the Almighty’s wrath!

Job 21:21 For what does he care about his family once he is dead, when the number of his months has run out?

Job 21:22 Can anyone teach God knowledge, since he judges the exalted ones?

Job 21:23 One person dies in excellent health, completely secure and at ease.

Job 21:24 His body is well fed, and his bones are full of marrow.

Job 21:25 Yet another person dies with a bitter throat, having never tasted prosperity.

Job 21:26 But they both lie in the dust, and worms cover them.

Job 21:27 I know your thoughts very well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.

Job 21:28 For you say, “Where now is the nobleman’s house?” and “Where are the tents the wicked lived in?”

Job 21:29 Have you never consulted those who travel the roads? Don’t you accept their reports?

Job 21:30 Indeed, the evil person is spared from the day of disaster, rescued from the day of wrath.

Job 21:31 Who would denounce his behavior to his face? Who would repay him for what he has done?

Job 21:32 He is carried to the grave, and someone keeps watch over his tomb.

Job 21:33 The dirt on his grave is sweet to him. Everyone follows behind him, and those who go before him are without number.

Job 21:34 So how can you offer me such futile comfort? Your answers are deceptive.

links:

not a machine
not fair

The Job shelf in my library

Job 20

Job 20:1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:

Job 20:2 This is why my disquieting thoughts compel me to answer, because I am upset!

Job 20:3 I have heard a rebuke that insults me, and my insight[1] makes me reply.

Job 20:4 Don’t you know that ever since antiquity, from the time a human was placed on the land,

Job 20:5 the joy of the wicked has been brief and the happiness of the godless has lasted only a moment?

Job 20:6 Though his arrogance reaches the sky, and his head touches the clouds,

Job 20:7 he will vanish forever like his own dung. Those who know him will ask, “Where is he?”

Job 20:8 He will fly away like a dream and never be found; he will be chased away like a vision in the night.

Job 20:9 The eye that saw him will see him no more, and his place will no longer see him.

Job 20:10 His children will beg from the poor, because his own hands must give back his wealth.

Job 20:11 His frame might be full of youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust.

Job 20:12 Though evil tastes sweet in his mouth and he conceals it under his tongue,

Job 20:13 though he cherishes it and will not let it go, but keeps it in his mouth,

Job 20:14 yet the food in his stomach turns into cobras’ venom inside him.

Job 20:15 He swallows wealth but must vomit it up; God will force it from his stomach.

Job 20:16 He will suck the poison of cobras; a viper’s fangs will kill him.

Job 20:17 He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and curds.

Job 20:18 He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it; he doesn’t enjoy the profits from his trading.

Job 20:19 For he oppressed and abandoned the poor; he seized a house he did not build.

Job 20:20 Because his appetite is never satisfied, he does not let anything he desires escape.

Job 20:21 Nothing is left for him to consume; therefore, his prosperity will not last.

Job 20:22 At the height of his success, distress will come to him; the full weight of misery will crush him.

Job 20:23 When he fills his stomach, God will send his burning anger against him, raining it down on him while he is eating.

Job 20:24 If he flees from an iron weapon, an arrow from a bronze bow will pierce him.

Job 20:25 He pulls it out of his back, the flashing tip out of his liver. Terrors come over him.

Job 20:26 Total darkness is reserved for his treasures. A fire unfanned by human hands will consume him; it will feed on what is left in his tent.

Job 20:27 The sky will expose his iniquity, and the ground will revolt against him.

Job 20:28 The possessions in his house will be removed, flowing away on the day of God’s anger.

Job 20:29 This is the wicked person’s due from God, the inheritance God ordained for him.

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[1] בִּינָה = insight. Job 20:3; 28:12, 20, 28; 34:16; 38:4, 36; 39:17, 26.

links:

karma
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Friday, January 17, 2020
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Wednesday, January 19, 2022
reversal of fortune

The Job shelf in my library

Job 19

Job 19:1 Then Job answered and said:

Job 19:2 Until when will you torment me and crush me with words?

Job 19:3 You have humiliated me ten times now, and you mistreat me without shame.

Job 19:4 Even if it is true that I have sinned, my mistake concerns only me.

Job 19:5 If you really want to appear superior to me and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,

Job 19:6 then understand that it is God who has wronged me and caught me in his net.

Job 19:7 I cry out: “Violence!” but get no response; I call for help, but there is no justice.

Job 19:8 He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass through; he has veiled my paths with darkness.

Job 19:9 He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.

Job 19:10 He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined. He uproots my hope like a tree.

Job 19:11 His anger burns against me, and he regards me as one of his enemies.

Job 19:12 His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and camp around my tent.

Job 19:13 He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.

Job 19:14 My kin stop coming by, and my close friends have forgotten me.

Job 19:15 My house guests and female servants regard me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight.

Job 19:16 I call for my servant, but he does not answer, even if I beg him with my mouth.

Job 19:17 My breath is offensive to my wife, and my own family finds me repulsive.

Job 19:18 Even young boys scorn me. When I stand up, they mock me.

Job 19:19 All of my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.

Job 19:20 My skin and my flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.

Job 19:21 Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for God’s hand has struck me.

Job 19:22 Why do you pursue me as God has? Will you never get enough of my flesh?

Job 19:23 I wish that my words were written down, that they were recorded on a scroll.

Job 19:24 or were inscribed in stone forever by an iron stylus and lead!

Job 19:25 But I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the dust.

Job 19:26 Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God from my flesh.

Job 19:27 I will see him myself; my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me.

Job 19:28 If you are saying, “How will we pursue him, since the root of the problem lies with him?”

Job 19:29 then be afraid of the sword, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.

links:

Jesus standing on the dust
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Tuesday, January 18, 2022
my eyes will look at him

The Job shelf in my library

Job 18

Job 18:1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

Job 18:2 Until when will you stop talking? Show some sense, and then we can talk.

Job 18:3 Why are we regarded as cattle, as stupid in your sight?

Job 18:4 You who tear your throat in anger — should the ground be abandoned on your account, or a rock be removed from its place?

Job 18:5 Yes, the light of the wicked is extinguished; the flame of his fire does not glow.

Job 18:6 The light in his tent grows dark, and the lamp beside him is put out.

Job 18:7 His powerful stride is shortened, and his schemes trip him up.

Job 18:8 Because his own feet lead him into a net, and he strays into its mesh.

Job 18:9 A trap catches him by the heel; a noose seizes him.

Job 18:10 A rope lies hidden for him on the ground, and a snare waits for him along the path.

Job 18:11 Terrors frighten him on every side and harass him at every step.

Job 18:12 His strength is depleted; disaster lies ready for him to stumble.

Job 18:13 Layers of his skin are eaten away; death’s beginning consumes his limbs.

Job 18:14 He is ripped from the security of his tent and marched away to the king of terrors.

Job 18:15 Nothing he owned remains in his tent. Burning sulfur is scattered over his home.

Job 18:16 His roots below dry up, and his branches above wither away.

Job 18:17 All memory of him is destroyed from the ground; he has no name anywhere.

Job 18:18 He is pushed[1] from light to darkness and chased from the inhabited world.

Job 18:19 He has no children or seed among his people, no survivor where he used to live.

Job 18:20 Those in the west are appalled at his fate, while those in the east tremble in horror.

Job 18:21 Surely such is the dwelling of the unjust man, and this is the place of the one who does not know God.

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[1]הָדַף

links:

cheering Bildad
losers

The Job shelf in my library

Job 17

Job 17:1 My breath is disturbed. My days are extinguished. A graveyard awaits me.

Job 17:2 Surely mockers surround me, and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion.

Job 17:3 Accept my pledge! Put up security for me. Who else will be my sponsor?

Therefore, you have closed their minds to understanding; thus, you will not honor them.

Job 17:5 If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail.

Job 17:6 He has made me an object of scorn to the people; I have become a face people spit at.

Job 17:7 My eyes have grown dim from aggravation, and my whole body has become but a shadow.

Job 17:8 The upright is appalled at this, and the innocent are roused against the godless.

Job 17:9 Yet the righteous person will hold to his way, and the one whose hands are clean will grow stronger.

Job 17:10 But come back and try again, all of you. I will not find a wise man among you.

Job 17:11 My days have slipped by; my plans have been torn up, even the things dear to my heart.

Job 17:12 They turned night into day and made light seem near in the face of darkness.

Job 17:13 If I await Sheol as my home, spread out my bed in darkness,

Job 17:14 and say to rot, “You are my father,” and to the maggot, “My mother” or “My sister,”

Job 17:15 where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me?

Job 17:16 Will it go down to the gates of Sheol, or will we descend together to the dust?

links:

A graveyard awaits
Job’s hope

The Job shelf in my library