Job: God Will Punish the Wicked 1 UDB Then Job replied in this way: BSB BSB: Then Job answered:
2 UDB "Listen to what I say, all of you; that is the only thing that you can do that will comfort me. BSB BSB: “Listen carefully to my words; let this be your consolation to me.
3 UDB Be patient with me, and allow me to speak. Then, after I am finished speaking, you can continue to make fun of me. BSB BSB: Bear with me while I speak; then, after I have spoken, you may go on mocking.
4 UDB It is certainly not people against whom I am complaining, but God! And it is certainly right for me to be impatient! BSB BSB: Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?
5 UDB Look at me! Does what you see not cause you to be appalled and to put your hands over your mouths and say no more? BSB BSB: Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth.
6 UDB When I think about what has happened to me, I am frightened and my entire body shakes. BSB BSB: When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror.
7 UDB But allow me to ask this: 'Why do wicked people continue to live, and become prosperous, and not die until they are very old?' BSB BSB: Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?
8 UDB They see their children around them, and they watch them while they grow up and start to live in their own houses. BSB BSB: Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes.
9 UDB Wicked people live in their own houses without being afraid, and God does not punish them. BSB BSB: Their homes are safe from fear; no rod of punishment from God is upon them.
10 UDB Their bulls always mate with the cows successfully, and the cows always give birth to calves and never miscarry. BSB BSB: Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry.
11 UDB Wicked people send their young children outside to play, and the children jump around happily like lambs in a pasture. BSB BSB: They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,
12 UDB The children sing to the sound of tambourines and lyres, and they are happy to hear the sound of flutes. BSB BSB: singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry at the sound of the flute.
13 UDB Wicked people enjoy having good things all the time that they are alive, and they die quietly and go down to the place of the dead. BSB BSB: They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace.
14 UDB While they are alive, they say to God, 'Leave us alone; we do not care about how you desire us to conduct our lives! BSB BSB: Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways.
15 UDB Why do you, Almighty God, think that we should serve you? What advantage do we get if we pray to you?' BSB BSB: Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’
16 UDB Wicked people think that they have become prosperous because of what they have done, but I do not want to have anything to do with their thinking. BSB BSB: Still, their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.
17 UDB How often does it happen that wicked people die, without experiencing disasters? Does God ever punish them because he is angry with them? BSB BSB: How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?
18 UDB He does not blow them away as wind blows away straw; they are never carried off by a whirlwind. BSB BSB: Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?
19 UDB You say, 'When people have committed sins, God waits and punishes their children because of those sins;' I say that God should punish those who sin, not their children, in order that the sinners may know that it is because of their own sins that they are being punished. BSB BSB: It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.
20 UDB I hope that wicked people will live to experience God destroying them, that they will experience Almighty God punishing them. BSB BSB: Let his eyes see his own destruction; let him drink for himself the wrath of the Almighty.
21 UDB After wicked people are dead, they are not at all concerned for their families who are still alive. BSB BSB: For what does he care about his household after him, when the number of his months has run out?
22 UDB Since God judges everyone, even those who are in heaven, who can teach him anything? BSB BSB: Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges those on high?
23 UDB Some people die while they are very healthy, while they are peaceful and not afraid of anything. BSB BSB: One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease.
24 UDB Their bodies are fat; their bones are strong. BSB BSB: His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.
25 UDB Other people die being very miserable; they have never experienced good things happening to them. BSB BSB: Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity.
26 UDB They die and are buried, and maggots cover their bodies. Everyone dies, so it is clear that dying is not always the punishment for being wicked. BSB BSB: But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.
27 UDB Listen, I know what you three are thinking, and I know the evil things that you plan to do to me. BSB BSB: Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.
28 UDB You say, 'What happened to the tents in which wicked people were living? The houses of evil rulers have been destroyed!' BSB BSB: For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’
29 UDB Have you never asked people who travel much? Do you not believe their reports about what they have seen, BSB BSB: Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their reports?
30 UDB that wicked people usually do not suffer at the time when there are great disasters; that when God punishes people, someone rescues the wicked? that wicked people are the ones whom someone else rescues when God punishes people? BSB BSB: Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath.
31 UDB There is no one who accuses wicked people, and there is no one who pays them back for all the evil things that they have done. BSB BSB: Who denounces his behavior to his face? Who repays him for what he has done?
32 UDB When the corpses of wicked people are carried to their graves, people are put there to guard those graves. BSB BSB: He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.
33 UDB A huge number of people go to the grave site; some go in front of the procession and some come behind, and the wicked ones who have died surely feel good when people throw clods of dirt on their graves. BSB BSB: The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number.
34 UDB So how can you comfort me by talking nonsense? Every reply that you give me is full of lies!" BSB BSB: So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.”
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.