Job 21:19–30

⁵Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

¹⁹¶ Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live.

²⁰The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

²What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?

²¹Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

⁴¶ Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

⁶All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

²⁹In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.

²¹For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

¹⁴Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:

³⁴Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?

¹⁴¶ Now, lo, if he beget a son, that seeth all his father’s sins which he hath done, and considereth, and doeth not such like,

³¹Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.

³²Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

³³Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

³⁴¶ Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

³⁵That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

⁹Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

¹⁰Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

¹¹Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.

¹²Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.

¹³Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

¹⁴Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

¹⁵Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

¹⁶Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.

¹⁷As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.

¹⁸As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.

¹⁹Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.

²⁰Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul.

²¹But do thou for me, O God the Lord, for thy name’s sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.

²²For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.

²³I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.

²⁴My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.

²⁵I became also a reproach unto them: when they looked upon me they shaked their heads.

²⁶Help me, O Lord my God: O save me according to thy mercy:

²⁷That they may know that this is thy hand; that thou, Lord, hast done it.

²⁸Let them curse, but bless thou: when they arise, let them be ashamed; but let thy servant rejoice.

²⁹Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.

³⁰I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude.

³¹For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul.

⁵He shall reward evil unto mine enemies: cut them off in thy truth.

⁶Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

⁵But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

³⁹And I am this day weak, though anointed king; and these men the sons of Zeruiah be too hard for me: the Lord shall reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness.

⁴¹If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.

⁷If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

²⁴Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust, and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks.

¹⁸Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

²⁷For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

¹⁹¶ Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

²⁰But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

¹⁷¶ Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.

⁸For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.

¹⁰The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

¹⁵¶ For thus saith the Lord God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.

¹⁶And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.

⁷Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

¹⁹The rich man shall lie down, but he shall not be gathered: he openeth his eyes, and he is not.

²³And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

³Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment.

¹⁵And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

⁵Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;

¹⁸¶ Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.

¹⁹And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.

²¹His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.

²⁷Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:

²⁸For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

²⁴I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations.

²³But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee.

³⁴For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?

¹⁶For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

¹³Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counseller hath taught him?

¹⁴With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?

³Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

⁴For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

⁸¶ If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.

²²It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

²³That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.

⁹Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?

¹⁵Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.

¹⁷Shall even he that hateth right govern? and wilt thou condemn him that is most just?

¹⁸Is it fit to say to a king, Thou art wicked? and to princes, Ye are ungodly?

¹⁹How much less to him that accepteth not the persons of princes, nor regardeth the rich more than the poor? for they all are the work of his hands.

¹¹Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven?

²²Behold, God exalteth by his power: who teacheth like him?

¹⁸Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:

²Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.

⁶And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

⁵Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high,

⁶Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!

¹GOD standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.

¹AND I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

²And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

³And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

¹²And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

¹³And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

¹⁴And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

¹⁵And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

²²In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him.

²³When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating.

¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

²⁰But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

²¹So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

¹⁷For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.

⁴For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.

⁵They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.

⁸It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.

²⁷Because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks.

¹⁰They are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly.

¹⁶Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:

¹⁷That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.

¹¹Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.

⁸For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field: and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.

²A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease.

¹⁸Son of man, eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and with carefulness;

¹⁵What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.

¹⁶O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.

¹⁷Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

¹MY soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

²³When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating.

²⁰Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;

¹⁸He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.

¹⁰The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.

²All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

¹¹Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

¹¹His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.

¹⁸There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

¹⁹The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

¹⁴I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.

²⁶And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:

²⁰The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree.

¹⁴Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.

²²But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts?

⁸⁶All thy commandments are faithful: they persecute me wrongfully; help thou me.

¹⁹For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

²⁰The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.

²¹A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him.

²²He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword.

²³He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.

²⁴Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.

²⁵For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty.

²⁶He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers:

²⁷Because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks.

²⁸And he dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps.

²⁹He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth.

³⁰He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away.

³¹Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity: for vanity shall be his recompence.

³²It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green.

³³He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive.

³⁴For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery.

³⁵They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.

²⁹This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God.

⁵That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?

³Also against his three friends was his wrath kindled, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job.

⁸Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.

⁹By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.

¹⁰The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

¹¹The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion’s whelps are scattered abroad.

⁷¶ And it was so, that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.

³I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I cursed his habitation.

⁴His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them.

⁵Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.

³Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?

⁴If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression;

⁵If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty;

⁶If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.

⁴They run and prepare themselves without my fault: awake to help me, and behold.

⁷Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?

²²They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nought.

⁹¶ Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!

¹⁰Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.

¹¹For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.

³His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.

³⁷I would declare unto him the number of my steps; as a prince would I go near unto him.

²⁶And he spake unto the congregation, saying, Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins.

²⁷So they gat up from the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side: and Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood in the door of their tents, and their wives, and their sons, and their little children.

²⁸And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind.

²⁹If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the Lord hath not sent me.

³⁰But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord.

³¹¶ And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them:

³²And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.

³³They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.

³⁴And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.

³⁶Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

⁵God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah.

⁶The righteous also shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him:

⁴I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof.

⁸Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you: we bless you in the name of the Lord.

⁴The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

⁹The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

¹⁰But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

¹¹Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.

¹²But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

¹³And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

¹⁴Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:

¹⁵Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

¹⁶But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.

¹⁷These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

⁷But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

²⁸The increase of his house shall depart, and his goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath.

⁵But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

¹³Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

²God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

⁴Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.

⁵The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.

¹⁷For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

¹⁵That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,