Job 21:7-17

7 Why does God let evil people live, let them grow old and prosper?
8 They have children and grandchildren, and live to watch them all grow up.
9 God does not bring disaster on their homes; they never have to live in terror.
10 Yes, all their cattle breed and give birth without trouble.
11 Their children run and play like lambs
12 and dance to the music of harps and flutes.
13 They live out their lives in peace and quietly die without suffering.
14 The wicked tell God to leave them alone; they don't want to know his will for their lives.
15 They think there is no need to serve God nor any advantage in praying to him.
16 They claim they succeed by their own strength, but their way of thinking I can't accept.
17 Was a wicked person's light ever put out? Did one of them ever meet with disaster? Did God ever punish the wicked in anger

Job 21:7-17 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 21

This chapter contains Job's reply to Zophar's preceding discourse, in which, after a preface exciting attention to what he was about to say, Job 21:1-6; he describes by various instances the prosperity of wicked men, even of the most impious and atheistical, and which continues with them as long as they live, contrary to what Zophar had asserted in Job 20:5, Job 21:7-15; as for himself, he disapproved of such wicked men as much as any, and owns that destruction comes upon them sooner or later, and on their posterity also, Job 21:16-21; but as God is a God of knowledge, and needs no instruction from any, and is a sovereign Being, he deals with men in different ways; some die in great ease, and peace, and prosperity, and others in bitterness and distress, but both are alike brought to the dust, Job 21:22-26; and whereas he was aware of their censures of him, and their objections to what he had said, he allows that the wicked are reserved to the day of destruction, which is future, and in the mean while lie in the grave, where all must follow; yet they are not repaid or rewarded in this life, that remains to be done in another world, Job 21:27-33; and concludes, that their consolation with respect to him was vain, and falsehood was in their answers, Job 21:34.

Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.