Job 21

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¹Then Job answered, ²“Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation. ✦ ³Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on. ✦ ⁴As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient? ✦ ⁵Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth. ✦ ⁶When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh. ✦ ⁷“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power? ✦ ⁸Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes. ✦ ⁹Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. ✦ ¹⁰Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry. ✦ ¹¹They send out their little ones like a flock. Their children dance. ✦ ¹²They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe. ✦ ¹³They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol. ✦ ¹⁴They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about your ways. ✦ ¹⁵What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’ ✦ ¹⁶Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me. ✦ ¹⁷“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger? ✦ ¹⁸How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away? ✦ ¹⁹You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it. ✦ ²⁰Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. ✦ ²¹For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off? ✦ ²²“Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high? ✦ ²³One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. ✦ ²⁴His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened. ✦ ²⁵Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good. ✦ ²⁶They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them. ✦ ²⁷“Behold, I know your thoughts, the devices with which you would wrong me. ✦ ²⁸For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’ ✦ ²⁹Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? Don’t you know their evidences, ✦ ³⁰that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led out to the day of wrath? ✦ ³¹Who shall declare his way to his face? Who shall repay him what he has done? ✦ ³²Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb. ✦ ³³The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall draw after him, as there were innumerable before him. ✦ ³⁴So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?” ✦

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Where this chapter connects

Job 20 ·9 Luke 16 ·6 Ps 73 ·5 Job 18 ·5 Job 15 ·5 Job 13 ·5 Ps 49 ·4 Job 16 ·4

Christ at the center

Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.

How Job 21 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Job videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Job 21YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Job 21David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on JobMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Job 21Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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