The World English Bible (WEB): Job
Date: 2005-06-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Bible. Job

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Title: The World English Bible (WEB): Job

Author: Anonymous

Release date: June 1, 2005 [eBook #8245]
Most recently updated: December 26, 2020

Language: English

Credits: From www.ebible.org with slight reformatting by Martin Ward

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE (WEB): JOB ***

From www.ebible.org with slight reformatting by Martin Ward.

Book 18 Job
001:001 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job.
That man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God, and turned away from evil.
001:002 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters.
001:003 His possessions also were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the children of the east.
001:004 His sons went and held a feast in the house of each one on his birthday; and they sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
001:005 It was so, when the days of their feasting had run their course, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all.
For Job said, "It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced
God in their hearts." Thus did Job continually.
001:006 Now it happened on the day when the God's sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan also came among them.
001:007 Yahweh said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"
Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."
001:008 Yahweh said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant, Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil."
001:009 Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "Does Job fear
God for nothing?
001:010 Haven't you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
001:011 But put forth your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face."
001:012 Yahweh said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power.
Only on himself don't put forth your hand." So Satan went forth from the presence of Yahweh.
001:013 It fell on a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house,
001:014 that there came a messenger to Job, and said, "The oxen were plowing, and the donkeys feeding beside them,
001:015 and the Sabeans attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you."
001:016 While he was still speaking, there also came another, and said,
"The fire of God has fallen from the sky, and has burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you."
001:017 While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said,
"The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you."
001:018 While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said,
"Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house,
001:019 and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you."
001:020 Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped.
001:021 He said, "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall
I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away.
Blessed be the name of Yahweh."
001:022 In all this, Job did not sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing.
002:001 Again it happened on the day when the God's sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan came also among them to present himself before Yahweh.
002:002 Yahweh said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"
Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."
002:003 Yahweh said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause."
002:004 Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "Skin for skin. Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.
002:005 But put forth your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face."
002:006 Yahweh said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand.
Only spare his life."
002:007 So Satan went forth from the presence of Yahweh, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head.
002:008 He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat among the ashes.
002:009 Then his wife said to him, "Do you still maintain your integrity?
Renounce God, and die."
002:010 But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" In all this Job didn't sin with his lips.
002:011 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place:
Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.
002:012 When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn't recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky.
002:013 So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
003:001 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.
003:002 Job answered:
003:003 "Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said,
'There is a boy conceived.'
003:004 Let that day be darkness. Don't let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it.
003:005 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own.
Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes black the day terrify it.
003:006 As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it.
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year.
Let it not come into the number of the months.
003:007 Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein.
003:008 Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.
003:009 Let the stars of the twilight of it be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,
003:010 because it didn't shut up the doors of my mother's womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
003:011 "Why didn't I die from the womb? Why didn't I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?
003:012 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should suck?
003:013 For now should I have lain down and been quiet.
I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,
003:014 with kings and counselors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;
003:015 or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver:
003:016 or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.
003:017 There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest.
003:018 There the prisoners are at ease together. They don't hear the voice of the taskmaster.
003:019 The small and the great are there. The servant is free from his master.
003:020 "Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul,
003:021 Who long for death, but it doesn't come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
003:022 who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
003:023 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, whom God has hedged in?
003:024 For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.
003:025 For the thing which I fear comes on me, That which I am afraid of comes to me.
003:026 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; but trouble comes."
004:001 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
004:002 "If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved?
But who can withhold himself from speaking?
004:003 Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands.
004:004 Your words have supported him who was falling, You have made firm the feeble knees.
004:005 But now it is come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled.
004:006 Isn't your piety your confidence? Isn't the integrity of your ways your hope?
004:007 "Remember, now, whoever perished, being innocent?
Or where were the upright cut off?
004:008 According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same.
004:009 By the breath of God they perish. By the blast of his anger are they consumed.
004:010 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken.
004:011 The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.
004:012 "Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it.
004:013 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,
004:014 fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.
004:015 Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up.
004:016 It stood still, but I couldn't discern its appearance.
A form was before my eyes. Silence, then I heard a voice, saying,
004:017 'Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?
004:018 Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error.
004:019 How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!
004:020 Between morning and evening they are destroyed.
They perish forever without any regarding it.
004:021 Isn't their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.'
005:001 "Call now; is there any who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?
005:002 For resentment kills the foolish man, and jealousy kills the simple.
005:003 I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habitation.
005:004 His children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate.
Neither is there any to deliver them,
005:005 whose harvest the hungry eats up, and take it even out of the thorns.
The snare gapes for their substance.
005:006 For affliction doesn't come forth from the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground;
005:007 but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
005:008 "But as for me, I would seek God. I would commit my cause to God,
005:009 who does great things that can't be fathomed, marvelous things without number;
005:010 who gives rain on the earth, and sends waters on the fields;
005:011 so that he sets up on high those who are low, those who mourn are exalted to safety.
005:012 He frustrates the devices of the crafty, So that their hands can't perform their enterprise.
005:013 He takes the wise in their own craftiness; the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong.
005:014 They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night.
005:015 But he saves from the sword of their mouth, even the needy from the hand of the mighty.
005:016 So the poor has hope, and injustice shuts her mouth.
005:017 "Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects. Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.
005:018 For he wounds, and binds up. He injures, and his hands make whole.
005:019 He will deliver you in six troubles; yes, in seven there shall no evil touch you.
005:020 In famine he will redeem you from death; in war, from the power of the sword.
005:021 You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, neither shall you be afraid of destruction when it comes.
005:022 At destruction and famine you shall laugh, neither shall you be afraid of the animals of the earth.
005:023 For you shall be in league with the stones of the field.
The animals of the field shall be at peace with you.
005:024 You shall know that your tent is in peace. You shall visit your fold, and shall miss nothing.
005:025 You shall know also that your seed shall be great, Your offspring as the grass of the earth.
005:026 You shall come to your grave in a full age, like a shock of grain comes in its season.
005:027 Look this, we have searched it, so it is. Hear it, and know it for your good."
006:001 Then Job answered,
006:002 "Oh that my anguish were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances!
006:003 For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, therefore have my words been rash.
006:004 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
006:005 Does the wild donkey bray when he has grass? Or does the ox low over his fodder?
006:006 Can that which has no flavor be eaten without salt?
Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?
006:007 My soul refuses to touch them. They are as loathsome food to me.
006:008 "Oh that I might have my request, that God would grant the thing that I long for,
006:009 even that it would please God to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!
006:010 Be it still my consolation, yes, let me exult in pain that doesn't spare, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
006:011 What is my strength, that I should wait? What is my end, that I should be patient?
006:012 Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass?
006:013 Isn't it that I have no help in me, That wisdom is driven quite from me?
006:014 "To him who is ready to faint, kindness should be shown from his friend; even to him who forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
006:015 My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the channel of brooks that pass away;
006:016 Which are black by reason of the ice, in which the snow hides itself.
006:017 In the dry season, they vanish. When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.
006:018 The caravans that travel beside them turn aside.
They go up into the waste, and perish.
006:019 The caravans of Tema looked. The companies of Sheba waited for them.
006:020 They were distressed because they were confident.
They came there, and were confounded.
006:021 For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid.
006:022 Did I say, 'Give to me?' or, 'Offer a present for me from your substance?'
006:023 or, 'Deliver me from the adversary's hand?' or, 'Redeem me from the hand of the oppressors?'
006:024 "Teach me, and I will hold my peace. Cause me to understand wherein I have erred.
006:025 How forcible are words of uprightness! But your reproof, what does it reprove?
006:026 Do you intend to reprove words, seeing that the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind?
006:027 Yes, you would even cast lots for the fatherless, and make merchandise of your friend.
006:028 Now therefore be pleased to look at me, for surely I shall not lie to your face.
006:029 Please return. Let there be no injustice. Yes, return again.
My cause is righteous.
006:030 Is there injustice on my tongue? Can't my taste discern mischievous things?
007:001 "Isn't a man forced to labor on earth? Aren't his days like the days of a hired hand?
007:002 As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages,
007:003 so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me.
007:004 When I lie down, I say, 'When shall I arise, and the night be gone?'
I toss and turn until the dawning of the day.
007:005 My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust.
My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.
007:006 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.
007:007 Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good.
007:008 The eye of him who sees me shall see me no more.
Your eyes shall be on me, but I shall not be.
007:009 As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol shall come up no more.
007:010 He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.
007:011 "Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
007:012 Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me?
007:013 When I say, 'My bed shall comfort me. My couch shall ease my complaint;'
007:014 then you scare me with dreams, and terrify me through visions:
007:015 so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.
007:016 I loathe my life. I don't want to live forever.
Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.
007:017 What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him,
007:018 that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment?
007:019 How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle?
007:020 If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men?
Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself?
007:021 Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity?
For now shall I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I shall not be."
008:001 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,
008:002 "How long will you speak these things? Shall the words of your mouth be a mighty wind?
008:003 Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert righteousness?
008:004 If your children have sinned against him, He has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience.
008:005 If you want to seek God diligently, make your supplication to the Almighty.
008:006 If you were pure and upright, surely now he would awaken for you, and make the habitation of your righteousness prosperous.
008:007 Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would greatly increase.
008:008 "Please inquire of past generations. Find out about the learning of their fathers.
008:009 (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow.)
008:010 Shall they not teach you, tell you, and utter words out of their heart?
008:011 "Can the papyrus grow up without mire? Can the rushes grow without water?
008:012 While it is yet in its greenness, not cut down, it withers before any other reed.
008:013 So are the paths of all who forget God. The hope of the godless man shall perish,
008:014 Whose confidence shall break apart, Whose trust is a spider's web.
008:015 He shall lean on his house, but it shall not stand.
He shall cling to it, but it shall not endure.
008:016 He is green before the sun. His shoots go forth over his garden.
008:017 His roots are wrapped around the rock pile. He sees the place of stones.
008:018 If he is destroyed from his place, then it shall deny him, saying, 'I have not seen you.'
008:019 Behold, this is the joy of his way: out of the earth, others shall spring.
008:020 "Behold, God will not cast away a blameless man, neither will he uphold the evil-doers.
008:021 He will still fill your mouth with laughter, your lips with shouting.
008:022 Those who hate you shall be clothed with shame.
The tent of the wicked shall be no more."
009:001 Then Job answered,
009:002 "Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God?
009:003 If he is pleased to contend with him, he can't answer him one time in a thousand.
009:004 God who is wise in heart, and mighty in strength:
who has hardened himself against him, and prospered?
009:005 He removes the mountains, and they don't know it, when he overturns them in his anger.
009:006 He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble.
009:007 He commands the sun, and it doesn't rise, and seals up the stars.
009:008 He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea.
009:009 He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the chambers of the south.
009:010 He does great things past finding out; yes, marvelous things without number.
009:011 Behold, he goes by me, and I don't see him. He passes on also, but I don't perceive him.
009:012 Behold, he snatches away. Who can hinder him? Who will ask him,
'What are you doing?'
009:013 "God will not withdraw his anger. The helpers of Rahab stoop under him.
009:014 How much less shall I answer him, And choose my words to argue with him?
009:015 Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn't answer him.
I would make supplication to my judge.
009:016 If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I wouldn't believe that he listened to my voice.
009:017 For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause.
009:018 He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness.
009:019 If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty!
If of justice, 'Who,' says he, 'will summon me?'
009:020 Though I am righteous, my own mouth shall condemn me.
Though I am blameless, it shall prove me perverse.
009:021 I am blameless. I don't regard myself. I despise my life.
009:022 "It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked.
009:023 If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent.
009:024 The earth is given into the hand of the wicked.
He covers the faces of the judges of it. If not he, then who is it?
009:025 "Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away, they see no good,
009:026 They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey.
009:027 If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and cheer up;'
009:028 I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that you will not hold me innocent.
009:029 I shall be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain?
009:030 If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye,
009:031 yet you will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes shall abhor me.
009:032 For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgment.
009:033 There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both.
009:034 Let him take his rod away from me. Let his terror not make me afraid;
009:035 then I would speak, and not fear him, for I am not so in myself.
010:001 "My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
010:002 I will tell God, 'Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.
010:003 Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked?
010:004 Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees?
010:005 Are your days as the days of mortals, or your years as man's years,
010:006 that you inquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin?
010:007 Although you know that I am not wicked, there is no one who can deliver out of your hand.
010:008 "'Your hands have framed me and fashioned me altogether, yet you destroy me.
010:009 Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay.
Will you bring me into dust again?
010:010 Haven't you poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese?
010:011 You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
010:012 You have granted me life and loving kindness. Your visitation has preserved my spirit.
010:013 Yet you hid these things in your heart. I know that this is with you:
010:014 if I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity.
010:015 If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still shall not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace, and conscious of my affliction.
010:016 If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion.
Again you show yourself powerful to me.
010:017 You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me.
010:018 "'Why, then, have you brought me forth out of the womb?
I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.
010:019 I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
010:020 Aren't my days few? Cease then. Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,
010:021 before I go where I shall not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
010:022 the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.'"
011:001 Then Zophar, the Naamathite, answered,
011:002 "Shouldn't the multitude of words be answered? Should a man full of talk be justified?
011:003 Should your boastings make men hold their peace?
When you mock, shall no man make you ashamed?
011:004 For you say, 'My doctrine is pure. I am clean in your eyes.'
011:005 But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against you,
011:006 that he would show you the secrets of wisdom! For true wisdom has two sides. Know therefore that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves.
011:007 "Can you fathom the mystery of God? Or can you probe the limits of the Almighty?
011:008 They are high as heaven. What can you do? They are deeper than Sheol. What can you know?
011:009 Its measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.
011:010 If he passes by, or confines, or convenes a court, then who can oppose him?
011:011 For he knows false men. He sees iniquity also, even though he doesn't consider it.
011:012 An empty-headed man becomes wise when a man is born as a wild donkey's colt.
011:013 "If you set your heart aright, stretch out your hands toward him.
011:014 If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away. Don't let unrighteousness dwell in your tents.
011:015 Surely then shall you lift up your face without spot;
Yes, you shall be steadfast, and shall not fear:
011:016 for you shall forget your misery. You shall remember it as waters that are passed away.
011:017 Life shall be clearer than the noonday. Though there is darkness, it shall be as the morning.
011:018 You shall be secure, because there is hope. Yes, you shall search, and shall take your rest in safety.
011:019 Also you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.
Yes, many shall court your favor.
011:020 But the eyes of the wicked shall fail. They shall have no way to flee. Their hope shall be the giving up of the spirit."
012:001 Then Job answered,
012:002 "No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.
012:003 But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you.
Yes, who doesn't know such things as these?
012:004 I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke.
012:005 In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips.
012:006 The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure, who carry their God in their hands.
012:007 "But ask the animals, now, and they shall teach you; the birds of the sky, and they shall tell you.
012:008 Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you. The fish of the sea shall declare to you.
012:009 Who doesn't know that in all these, the hand of Yahweh has done this,
012:010 in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?
012:011 Doesn't the ear try words, even as the palate tastes its food?
012:012 With aged men is wisdom, in length of days understanding.
012:013 "With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding.
012:014 Behold, he breaks down, and it can't be built again.
He imprisons a man, and there can be no release.
012:015 Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up. Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.
012:016 With him is strength and wisdom. The deceived and the deceiver are his.
012:017 He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools.
012:018 He loosens the bond of kings. He binds their waist with a belt.
012:019 He leads priests away stripped, and overthrows the mighty.
012:020 He removes the speech of those who are trusted, and takes away the understanding of the elders.
012:021 He pours contempt on princes, and loosens the belt of the strong.
012:022 He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings out to light the shadow of death.
012:023 He increases the nations, and he destroys them.
He enlarges the nations, and he leads them captive.
012:024 He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
012:025 They grope in the dark without light. He makes them stagger like a drunken man.
013:001 "Behold, my eye has seen all this. My ear has heard and understood it.
013:002 What you know, I know also. I am not inferior to you.
013:003 "Surely I would speak to the Almighty. I desire to reason with God.
013:004 But you are forgers of lies. You are all physicians of no value.
013:005 Oh that you would be completely silent! Then you would be wise.
013:006 Hear now my reasoning. Listen to the pleadings of my lips.
013:007 Will you speak unrighteously for God, and talk deceitfully for him?
013:008 Will you show partiality to him? Will you contend for God?
013:009 Is it good that he should search you out? Or as one deceives a man, will you deceive him?
013:010 He will surely reprove you if you secretly show partiality.
013:011 Shall not his majesty make you afraid, And his dread fall on you?
013:012 Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes, Your defenses are defenses of clay.
013:013 "Be silent, leave me alone, that I may speak. Let come on me what will.
013:014 Why should I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand?
013:015 Behold, he will kill me. I have no hope. Nevertheless, I will maintain my ways before him.
013:016 This also shall be my salvation, that a godless man shall not come before him.
013:017 Hear diligently my speech. Let my declaration be in your ears.
013:018 See now, I have set my cause in order. I know that I am righteous.
013:019 Who is he who will contend with me? For then would I hold my peace and give up the spirit.
013:020 "Only don't do two things to me; then I will not hide myself from your face:
013:021 withdraw your hand far from me; and don't let your terror make me afraid.
013:022 Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you answer me.
013:023 How many are my iniquities and sins? Make me know my disobedience and my sin.
013:024 Why hide you your face, and hold me for your enemy?
013:025 Will you harass a driven leaf? Will you pursue the dry stubble?
013:026 For you write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth:
013:027 You also put my feet in the stocks, and mark all my paths.
You set a bound to the soles of my feet,
013:028 though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.
014:001 "Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
014:002 He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn't continue.
014:003 Do you open your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgment with you?
014:004 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.
014:005 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can't pass;
014:006 Look away from him, that he may rest, until he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.
014:007 "For there is hope for a tree, If it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease.
014:008 Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground,
014:009 yet through the scent of water it will bud, and put forth boughs like a plant.
014:010 But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?
014:011 As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up,
014:012 so man lies down and doesn't rise. Until the heavens are no more, they shall not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.
014:013 "Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret, until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
014:014 If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my release should come.
014:015 You would call, and I would answer you. You would have a desire to the work of your hands.
014:016 But now you number my steps. Don't you watch over my sin?
014:017 My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity.
014:018 "But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place;
014:019 The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man.
014:020 You forever prevail against him, and he departs.
You change his face, and send him away.
014:021 His sons come to honor, and he doesn't know it.
They are brought low, but he doesn't perceive it of them.
014:022 But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns."
015:001 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
015:002 "Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?
015:003 Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches with which he can do no good?
015:004 Yes, you do away with fear, and hinder devotion before God.
015:005 For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty.
015:006 Your own mouth condemns you, and not I. Yes, your own lips testify against you.
015:007 "Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought forth before the hills?
015:008 Have you heard the secret counsel of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?
015:009 What do you know, that we don't know? What do you understand, which is not in us?
015:010 With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, much elder than your father.
015:011 Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word that is gentle toward you?
015:012 Why does your heart carry you away? Why do your eyes flash,
015:013 That you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth?
015:014 What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
015:015 Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight;
015:016 how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!
015:017 "I will show you, listen to me; that which I have seen
I will declare:
015:018 (Which wise men have told by their fathers, and have not hidden it;
015:019 to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them):
015:020 the wicked man writhes in pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.
015:021 A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer shall come on him.
015:022 He doesn't believe that he shall return out of darkness.
He is waited for by the sword.
015:023 He wanders abroad for bread, saying, 'Where is it?'
He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
015:024 Distress and anguish make him afraid. They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.
015:025 Because he has stretched out his hand against God, and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty;
015:026 he runs at him with a stiff neck, with the thick shields of his bucklers;
015:027 because he has covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat on his thighs.
015:028 He has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps.
015:029 He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall their possessions be extended on the earth.
015:030 He shall not depart out of darkness. The flame shall dry up his branches. By the breath of God's mouth shall he go away.
015:031 Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness shall be his reward.
015:032 It shall be accomplished before his time. His branch shall not be green.
015:033 He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive tree.
015:034 For the company of the godless shall be barren, and fire shall consume the tents of bribery.
015:035 They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
Their heart prepares deceit."
016:001 Then Job answered,
016:002 "I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!
016:003 Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
016:004 I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul's place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,
016:005 but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you.
016:006 "Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased?
016:007 But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made desolate all my company.
016:008 You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me.
My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face.
016:009 He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me.
He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.
016:010 They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me.
016:011 God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
016:012 I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.
016:013 His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground.
016:014 He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs on me like a giant.
016:015 I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust.
016:016 My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids.
016:017 Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
016:018 "Earth, don't cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest.
016:019 Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me is on high.
016:020 My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,
016:021 that he would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of man with his neighbor!
016:022 For when a few years are come, I shall go the way from whence
I shall not return.
017:001 "My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me.
017:002 Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation.
017:003 "Now give a pledge, be collateral for me with yourself.
Who is there who will strike hands with me?
017:004 For you have hidden their heart from understanding,
Therefore shall you not exalt them.
017:005 He who denounces his friends for a prey, Even the eyes of his children shall fail.
017:006 "But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.
017:007 My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow.
017:008 Upright men shall be astonished at this. The innocent shall stir up himself against the godless.
017:009 Yet shall the righteous hold on his way. He who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger.
017:010 But as for you all, come on now again; I shall not find a wise man among you.
017:011 My days are past, my plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.
017:012 They change the night into day, saying 'The light is near'
in the presence of darkness.
017:013 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,
017:014 If I have said to corruption, 'You are my father;' to the worm,
'My mother,' and 'my sister;'
017:015 where then is my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
017:016 Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?"
018:001 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,
018:002 "How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak.
018:003 Why are we counted as animals, which have become unclean in your sight?
018:004 You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed out of its place?
018:005 "Yes, the light of the wicked shall be put out, The spark of his fire shall not shine.
018:006 The light shall be dark in his tent. His lamp above him shall be put out.
018:007 The steps of his strength shall be shortened. His own counsel shall cast him down.
018:008 For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh.
018:009 A snare will take him by the heel. A trap will catch him.
018:010 A noose is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him in the way.
018:011 Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall chase him at his heels.
018:012 His strength shall be famished. Calamity shall be ready at his side.
018:013 The members of his body shall be devoured. The firstborn of death shall devour his members.
018:014 He shall be rooted out of his tent where he trusts.
He shall be brought to the king of terrors.
018:015 There shall dwell in his tent that which is none of his.
Sulfur shall be scattered on his habitation.
018:016 His roots shall be dried up beneath. Above shall his branch be cut off.
018:017 His memory shall perish from the earth. He shall have no name in the street.
018:018 He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.
018:019 He shall have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he sojourned.
018:020 Those who come after shall be astonished at his day, as those who went before were frightened.
018:021 Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous.
This is the place of him who doesn't know God."
019:001 Then Job answered,
019:002 "How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?
019:003 You have reproached me ten times. You aren't ashamed that you attack me.
019:004 If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.
019:005 If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach;
019:006 know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.
019:007 "Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard.
I cry for help, but there is no justice.
019:008 He has walled up my way so that I can't pass, and has set darkness in my paths.
019:009 He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.
019:010 He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone.
My hope he has plucked up like a tree.
019:011 He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.
019:012 His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.
019:013 "He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
019:014 My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.
019:015 Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger.
I am an alien in their sight.
019:016 I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer.
I beg him with my mouth.
019:017 My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
019:018 Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.
019:019 All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.
019:020 My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
019:021 "Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me.
019:022 Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
019:023 "Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
019:024 That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
019:025 But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth.
019:026 After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God,
019:027 Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger. "My heart is consumed within me.
019:028 If you say, 'How we will persecute him!' because the root of the matter is found in me,
019:029 be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment."
020:001 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered,
020:002 "Therefore do my thoughts give answer to me, even by reason of my haste that is in me.
020:003 I have heard the reproof which puts me to shame.
The spirit of my understanding answers me.
020:004 Don't you know this from old time, since man was placed on earth,
020:005 that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment?
020:006 Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds,
020:007 yet he shall perish forever like his own dung.
Those who have seen him shall say, 'Where is he?'
020:008 He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found.
Yes, he shall be chased away like a vision of the night.
020:009 The eye which saw him shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more see him.
020:010 His children shall seek the favor of the poor. His hands shall give back his wealth.
020:011 His bones are full of his youth, but youth shall lie down with him in the dust.
020:012 "Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue,
020:013 though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth;
020:014 yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom within him.
020:015 He has swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again.
God will cast them out of his belly.
020:016 He shall suck cobra venom. The viper's tongue shall kill him.
020:017 He shall not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter.
020:018 That for which he labored he shall restore, and shall not swallow it down. According to the substance that he has gotten, he shall not rejoice.
020:019 For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he shall not build it up.
020:020 "Because he knew no quietness within him, he shall not save anything of that in which he delights.
020:021 There was nothing left that he didn't devour, therefore his prosperity shall not endure.
020:022 In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress shall overtake him.
The hand of everyone who is in misery shall come on him.
020:023 When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating.
020:024 He shall flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow shall strike him through.
020:025 He draws it forth, and it comes out of his body.
Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver.
Terrors are on him.
020:026 All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire shall devour him. It shall consume that which is left in his tent.
020:027 The heavens shall reveal his iniquity. The earth shall rise up against him.
020:028 The increase of his house shall depart. They shall rush away in the day of his wrath.
020:029 This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God."
021:001 Then Job answered,
021:002 "Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.
021:003 Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on.
021:004 As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn't I be impatient?
021:005 Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
021:006 When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
021:007 "Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
021:008 Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.
021:009 Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of
God upon them.
021:010 Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don't miscarry.
021:011 They send forth their little ones like a flock.
Their children dance.
021:012 They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
021:013 They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.
021:014 They tell God, 'Depart from us, for we don't want to know about your ways.
021:015 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
What profit should we have, if we pray to him?'
021:016 Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
021:017 "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?
021:018 How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
021:019 You say, 'God lays up his iniquity for his children.'
Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
021:020 Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
021:021 For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
021:022 "Shall any teach God knowledge, seeing he judges those who are high?
021:023 One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
021:024 His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.
021:025 Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.
021:026 They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
021:027 "Behold, I know your thoughts, the devices with which you would wrong me.
021:028 For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince?
Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?'
021:029 Haven't you asked wayfaring men? Don't you know their evidences,
021:030 that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity,
That they are led forth to the day of wrath?
021:031 Who shall declare his way to his face? Who shall repay him what he has done?
021:032 Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb.
021:033 The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.
021:034 So how can you comfort me with nonsense, seeing that in your answers there remains only falsehood?"
022:001 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
022:002 "Can a man be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.
022:003 Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that you are righteous?
Or does it benefit him, that you make your ways perfect?
022:004 Is it for your piety that he reproves you, that he enters with you into judgment?
022:005 Isn't your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your iniquities.
022:006 For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing.
022:007 You haven't given water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry.
022:008 But as for the mighty man, he had the earth. The honorable man, he lived in it.
022:009 You have sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
022:010 Therefore snares are round about you. Sudden fear troubles you,
022:011 or darkness, so that you can not see, and floods of waters cover you.
022:012 "Isn't God in the heights of heaven? See the height of the stars, how high they are!
022:013 You say, 'What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness?
022:014 Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he doesn't see.
He walks on the vault of the sky.'
022:015 Will you keep the old way, which wicked men have trodden,
022:016 who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a stream,
022:017 who said to God, 'Depart from us;' and, 'What can the Almighty do for us?'
022:018 Yet he filled their houses with good things, but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
022:019 The righteous see it, and are glad. The innocent ridicule them,
022:020 saying, 'Surely those who rose up against us are cut off.
The fire has consumed the remnant of them.'
022:021 "Acquaint yourself with him, now, and be at peace.
Thereby good shall come to you.
022:022 Please receive instruction from his mouth, and lay up his words in your heart.
022:023 If you return to the Almighty, you shall be built up, if you put away unrighteousness far from your tents.
022:024 Lay your treasure in the dust, the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks.
022:025 The Almighty will be your treasure, and precious silver to you.
022:026 For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty, and shall lift up your face to God.
022:027 You shall make your prayer to him, and he will hear you.
You shall pay your vows.
022:028 You shall also decree a thing, and it shall be established to you.
Light shall shine on your ways.
022:029 When they cast down, you shall say, 'be lifted up.'
He will save the humble person.
022:030 He will even deliver him who is not innocent. Yes, he shall be delivered through the cleanness of your hands."
023:001 Then Job answered,
023:002 "Even today my complaint is rebellious. His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.
023:003 Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat!
023:004 I would set my cause in order before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.
023:005 I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would tell me.
023:006 Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power?
No, but he would listen to me.
023:007 There the upright might reason with him, so I should be delivered forever from my judge.
023:008 "If I go east, he is not there; if west, I can't find him;
023:009 He works to the north, but I can't see him. He turns south, but I can't catch a glimpse of him.
023:010 But he knows the way that I take. When he has tried me,
I shall come forth like gold.
023:011 My foot has held fast to his steps. I have kept his way, and not turned aside.
023:012 I haven't gone back from the commandment of his lips.
I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
023:013 But he stands alone, and who can oppose him? What his soul desires, even that he does.
023:014 For he performs that which is appointed for me.
Many such things are with him.
023:015 Therefore I am terrified at his presence. When I consider,
I am afraid of him.
023:016 For God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me.
023:017 Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither did he cover the thick darkness from my face.
024:001 "Why aren't times laid up by the Almighty? Why don't those who know him see his days?
024:002 There are people who remove the landmarks. They violently take away flocks, and feed them.
024:003 They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow's ox for a pledge.
024:004 They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves.
024:005 Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go forth to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children.
024:006 They cut their provender in the field. They glean the vineyard of the wicked.
024:007 They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.
024:008 They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter.
024:009 There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor,
024:010 So that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves.
024:011 They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.
024:012 From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn't regard the folly.
024:013 "These are of those who rebel against the light.
They don't know its ways, nor abide in its paths.
024:014 The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy.
In the night he is like a thief.
024:015 The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying,
'No eye shall see me.' He disguises his face.
024:016 In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don't know the light.
024:017 For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness, for they know the terrors of the thick darkness.
024:018 "They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their portion is cursed in the earth. They don't turn into the way of the vineyards.
024:019 Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned.
024:020 The womb shall forget him. The worm shall feed sweetly on him.
He shall be no more remembered. Unrighteousness shall be broken as a tree.
024:021 He devours the barren who don't bear. He shows no kindness to the widow.
024:022 Yet God preserves the mighty by his power. He rises up who has no assurance of life.
024:023 God gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways.
024:024 They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone.
Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain.
024:025 If it isn't so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?"
025:001 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,
025:002 "Dominion and fear are with him. He makes peace in his high places.
025:003 Can his armies be counted? On whom does his light not arise?
025:004 How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?
025:005 Behold, even the moon has no brightness, and the stars are not pure in his sight;
025:006 How much less man, who is a worm, the son of man, who is a worm!"
026:001 Then Job answered,
026:002 "How have you helped him who is without power! How have you saved the arm that has no strength!
026:003 How have you counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge!
026:004 To whom have you uttered words? Whose spirit came forth from you?
026:005 "Those who are deceased tremble, those beneath the waters and all that live in them.
026:006 Sheol{Sheol is the lower world or the grave.} is naked before God, and Abaddon{Abaddon means Destroyer.} has no covering.
026:007 He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth on nothing.
026:008 He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not burst under them.
026:009 He encloses the face of his throne, and spreads his cloud on it.
026:010 He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters, and to the confines of light and darkness.
026:011 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his rebuke.
026:012 He stirs up the sea with his power, and by his understanding he strikes through Rahab.
026:013 By his Spirit the heavens are garnished. His hand has pierced the swift serpent.
026:014 Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways.
How small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?"
027:001 Job again took up his parable, and said,
027:002 "As God lives, who has taken away my right, the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter.
027:003 (For the length of my life is still in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils);
027:004 surely my lips shall not speak unrighteousness, neither shall my tongue utter deceit.
027:005 Far be it from me that I should justify you. Until I die I will not put away my integrity from me.
027:006 I hold fast to my righteousness, and will not let it go.
My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.
027:007 "Let my enemy be as the wicked. Let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous.
027:008 For what is the hope of the godless, when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?
027:009 Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him?
027:010 Will he delight himself in the Almighty, and call on God at all times?
027:011 I will teach you about the hand of God. That which is with the Almighty will I not conceal.
027:012 Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain?
027:013 "This is the portion of a wicked man with God, the heritage of oppressors, which they receive from the Almighty.
027:014 If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword.
His offspring shall not be satisfied with bread.
027:015 Those who remain of him shall be buried in death.
His widows shall make no lamentation.
027:016 Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare clothing as the clay;
027:017 he may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver.
027:018 He builds his house as the moth, as a booth which the watchman makes.
027:019 He lies down rich, but he shall not do so again.
He opens his eyes, and he is not.
027:020 Terrors overtake him like waters. A storm steals him away in the night.
027:021 The east wind carries him away, and he departs.
It sweeps him out of his place.
027:022 For it hurls at him, and does not spare, as he flees away from his hand.
027:023 Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.
028:001 "Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold which they refine.
028:002 Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted out of the ore.
028:003 Man sets an end to darkness, and searches out, to the furthest bound, the stones of obscurity and of thick darkness.
028:004 He breaks open a shaft away from where people live.
They are forgotten by the foot. They hang far from men, they swing back and forth.
028:005 As for the earth, out of it comes bread; Underneath it is turned up as it were by fire.
028:006 Sapphires come from its rocks. It has dust of gold.
028:007 That path no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon's eye seen it.
028:008 The proud animals have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed by there.
028:009 He puts forth his hand on the flinty rock, and he overturns the mountains by the roots.
028:010 He cuts out channels among the rocks. His eye sees every precious thing.
028:011 He binds the streams that they don't trickle. The thing that is hidden he brings forth to light.
028:012 "But where shall wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding?
028:013 Man doesn't know its price; Neither is it found in the land of the living.
028:014 The deep says, 'It isn't in me.' The sea says, 'It isn't with me.'
028:015 It can't be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for its price.
028:016 It can't be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire{or, lapis lazuli}.
028:017 Gold and glass can't equal it, neither shall it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold.
028:018 No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal. Yes, the price of wisdom is above rubies.
028:019 The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, Neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
028:020 Whence then comes wisdom? Where is the place of understanding?
028:021 Seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the birds of the sky.
028:022 Destruction and Death say, 'We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.'
028:023 "God understands its way, and he knows its place.
028:024 For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole sky.
028:025 He establishes the force of the wind. Yes, he measures out the waters by measure.
028:026 When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder;
028:027 then he saw it, and declared it. He established it, yes, and searched it out.
028:028 To man he said, 'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.
To depart from evil is understanding.'"
029:001 Job again took up his parable, and said,
029:002 "Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me;
029:003 when his lamp shone on my head, and by his light I walked through darkness,
029:004 as I was in the ripeness of my days, when the friendship of God was in my tent,
029:005 when the Almighty was yet with me, and my children were around me,
029:006 when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out streams of oil for me,
029:007 when I went forth to the city gate, when I prepared my seat in the street.
029:008 The young men saw me and hid themselves. The aged rose up and stood.
029:009 The princes refrained from talking, and laid their hand on their mouth.
029:010 The voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth.
029:011 For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it commended me:
029:012 Because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless also, who had none to help him,
029:013 the blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
029:014 I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was as a robe and a diadem.
029:015 I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame.
029:016 I was a father to the needy. The cause of him who I didn't know,
I searched out.
029:017 I broke the jaws of the unrighteous, and plucked the prey out of his teeth.
029:018 Then I said, 'I shall die in my own house, I shall number my days as the sand.
029:019 My root is spread out to the waters. The dew lies all night on my branch.
029:020 My glory is fresh in me. My bow is renewed in my hand.'
029:021 "Men listened to me, waited, and kept silence for my counsel.
029:022 After my words they didn't speak again. My speech fell on them.
029:023 They waited for me as for the rain. Their mouths drank as with the spring rain.
029:024 I smiled on them when they had no confidence. They didn't reject the light of my face.
029:025 I chose out their way, and sat as chief. I lived as a king in the army, as one who comforts the mourners.
030:001 "But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs.
030:002 Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished?
030:003 They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.
030:004 They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom are their food.
030:005 They are driven out from the midst of men. They cry after them as after a thief;
030:006 So that they dwell in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
030:007 Among the bushes they bray; and under the nettles they are gathered together.
030:008 They are children of fools, yes, children of base men.
They were flogged out of the land.
030:009 "Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them.
030:010 They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don't hesitate to spit in my face.
030:011 For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me.
030:012 On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet,
They cast up against me their ways of destruction.
030:013 They mar my path, They set forward my calamity, without anyone's help.
030:014 As through a wide breach they come, in the midst of the ruin they roll themselves in.
030:015 Terrors have turned on me. They chase my honor as the wind.
My welfare has passed away as a cloud.
030:016 "Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold on me.
030:017 In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest.
030:018 By great force is my garment disfigured. It binds me about as the collar of my coat.
030:019 He has cast me into the mire. I have become like dust and ashes.
030:020 I cry to you, and you do not answer me. I stand up, and you gaze at me.
030:021 You have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of your hand you persecute me.
030:022 You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it.
You dissolve me in the storm.
030:023 For I know that you will bring me to death, To the house appointed for all living.
030:024 "However doesn't one stretch out a hand in his fall?
Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?
030:025 Didn't I weep for him who was in trouble? Wasn't my soul grieved for the needy?
030:026 When I looked for good, then evil came; When I waited for light, there came darkness.
030:027 My heart is troubled, and doesn't rest. Days of affliction have come on me.
030:028 I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.
030:029 I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.
030:030 My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.
030:031 Therefore my harp has turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.
031:001 "I made a covenant with my eyes, how then should I look lustfully at a young woman?
031:002 For what is the portion from God above, and the heritage from the Almighty on high?
031:003 Is it not calamity to the unrighteous, and disaster to the workers of iniquity?
031:004 Doesn't he see my ways, and number all my steps?
031:005 "If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hurried to deceit
031:006 (let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity);
031:007 if my step has turned out of the way, if my heart walked after my eyes, if any defilement has stuck to my hands,
031:008 then let me sow, and let another eat. Yes, let the produce of my field be rooted out.
031:009 "If my heart has been enticed to a woman, and I have laid wait at my neighbor's door,
031:010 then let my wife grind for another, and let others sleep with her.
031:011 For that would be a heinous crime. Yes, it would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges:
031:012 For it is a fire that consumes to destruction, and would root out all my increase.
031:013 "If I have despised the cause of my male servant or of my female servant, when they contended with me;
031:014 What then shall I do when God rises up? When he visits, what shall I answer him?
031:015 Didn't he who made me in the womb make him? Didn't one fashion us in the womb?
031:016 "If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,
031:017 or have eaten my morsel alone, and the fatherless has not eaten of it
031:018 (no, from my youth he grew up with me as with a father, her have I guided from my mother's womb);
031:019 if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or that the needy had no covering;
031:020 if his heart hasn't blessed me, if he hasn't been warmed with my sheep's fleece;
031:021 if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, because I saw my help in the gate,
031:022 then let my shoulder fall from the shoulder blade, and my arm be broken from the bone.
031:023 For calamity from God is a terror to me. Because his majesty,
I can do nothing.
031:024 "If I have made gold my hope, and have said to the fine gold,
'You are my confidence;'
031:025 If I have rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because my hand had gotten much;
031:026 if I have seen the sun when it shined, or the moon moving in splendor,
031:027 and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my hand threw a kiss from my mouth,
031:028 this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges; for I should have denied the God who is above.
031:029 "If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him;
031:030 (yes, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking his life with a curse);
031:031 if the men of my tent have not said, 'Who can find one who has not been filled with his meat?'
031:032 (the foreigner has not lodged in the street, but I have opened my doors to the traveler);
031:033 if like Adam I have covered my transgressions, by hiding my iniquity in my heart,
031:034 because I feared the great multitude, and the contempt of families terrified me, so that I kept silence, and didn't go out of the door—
031:035 oh that I had one to hear me! (behold, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me); let the accuser write my indictment!
031:036 Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; and I would bind it to me as a crown.
031:037 I would declare to him the number of my steps. as a prince would I go near to him.
031:038 If my land cries out against me, and the furrows of it weep together;
031:039 if I have eaten the fruits of it without money, or have caused the owners of it to lose their life,
031:040 let briars grow instead of wheat, and stinkweed instead of barley."
The words of Job are ended.
032:001 So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.
032:002 Then the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel, the Buzite, of the family of Ram, was kindled against Job. His wrath was kindled because he justified himself rather than God.
032:003 Also his wrath was kindled against his three friends, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job.
032:004 Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job, because they were elder than he.
032:005 When Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, his wrath was kindled.
032:006 Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered, "I am young, and you are very old; Therefore I held back, and didn't dare show you my opinion.
032:007 I said, 'Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.'
032:008 But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.
032:009 It is not the great who are wise, nor the aged who understand justice.
032:010 Therefore I said, 'Listen to me; I also will show my opinion.'
032:011 "Behold, I waited for your words, and I listened for your reasoning, while you searched out what to say.
032:012 Yes, I gave you my full attention, but there was no one who convinced Job, or who answered his words, among you.
032:013 Beware lest you say, 'We have found wisdom, God may refute him, not man;'
032:014 for he has not directed his words against me; neither will I answer him with your speeches.
032:015 "They are amazed. They answer no more. They don't have a word to say.
032:016 Shall I wait, because they don't speak, because they stand still, and answer no more?
032:017 I also will answer my part, and I also will show my opinion.
032:018 For I am full of words. The spirit within me constrains me.
032:019 Behold, my breast is as wine which has no vent; like new wineskins it is ready to burst.
032:020 I will speak, that I may be refreshed. I will open my lips and answer.
032:021 Please don't let me respect any man's person, neither will I give flattering titles to any man.
032:022 For I don't know how to give flattering titles; or else my Maker would soon take me away.
033:001 "However, Job, Please hear my speech, and listen to all my words.
033:002 See now, I have opened my mouth. My tongue has spoken in my mouth.
033:003 My words shall utter the uprightness of my heart.
That which my lips know they shall speak sincerely.
033:004 The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
033:005 If you can, answer me. Set your words in order before me, and stand forth.
033:006 Behold, I am toward God even as you are. I am also formed out of the clay.
033:007 Behold, my terror shall not make you afraid, neither shall my pressure be heavy on you.
033:008 "Surely you have spoken in my hearing, I have heard the voice of your words, saying,
033:009 'I am clean, without disobedience. I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me.
033:010 Behold, he finds occasions against me. He counts me for his enemy.
033:011 He puts my feet in the stocks. He marks all my paths.'
033:012 "Behold, I will answer you. In this you are not just, for God is greater than man.
033:013 Why do you strive against him, because he doesn't give account of any of his matters?
033:014 For God speaks once, yes twice, though man pays no attention.
033:015 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, in slumbering on the bed;
033:016 Then he opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction,
033:017 That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.
033:018 He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
033:019 He is chastened also with pain on his bed, with continual strife in his bones;
033:020 So that his life abhors bread, and his soul dainty food.
033:021 His flesh is so consumed away, that it can't be seen.
His bones that were not seen stick out.
033:022 Yes, his soul draws near to the pit, and his life to the destroyers.
033:023 "If there is beside him an angel, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show to man what is right for him;
033:024 then God is gracious to him, and says, 'Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.'
033:025 His flesh shall be fresher than a child's. He returns to the days of his youth.
033:026 He prays to God, and he is favorable to him, so that he sees his face with joy. He restores to man his righteousness.
033:027 He sings before men, and says, 'I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it didn't profit me.
033:028 He has redeemed my soul from going into the pit.
My life shall see the light.'
033:029 "Behold, God works all these things, twice, yes three times, with a man,
033:030 to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of the living.
033:031 Mark well, Job, and listen to me. Hold your peace, and I will speak.
033:032 If you have anything to say, answer me. Speak, for I desire to justify you.
033:033 If not, listen to me. Hold your peace, and I will teach you wisdom."
034:001 Moreover Elihu answered,
034:002 "Hear my words, you wise men. Give ear to me, you who have knowledge.
034:003 For the ear tries words, as the palate tastes food.
034:004 Let us choose for us that which is right. Let us know among ourselves what is good.
034:005 For Job has said, 'I am righteous, God has taken away my right:
034:006 Notwithstanding my right I am considered a liar.
My wound is incurable, though I am without disobedience.'
034:007 What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water,
034:008 Who goes in company with the workers of iniquity, and walks with wicked men?
034:009 For he has said, 'It profits a man nothing that he should delight himself with God.'
034:010 "Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding: far be it from God, that he should do wickedness, from the Almighty, that he should commit iniquity.
034:011 For the work of a man he will render to him, and cause every man to find according to his ways.
034:012 Yes surely, God will not do wickedly, neither will the
Almighty pervert justice.
034:013 Who gave him a charge over the earth? or who has appointed him over the whole world?
034:014 If he set his heart on himself, If he gathered to himself his spirit and his breath,
034:015 all flesh would perish together, and man would turn again to dust.
034:016 "If now you have understanding, hear this. Listen to the voice of my words.
034:017 Shall even one who hates justice govern? Will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty?—
034:018 Who says to a king, 'Vile!' or to nobles, 'Wicked!'?
034:019 Who doesn't respect the persons of princes, nor regards the rich more than the poor; for they all are the work of his hands.
034:020 In a moment they die, even at midnight. The people are shaken and pass away. The mighty are taken away without a hand.
034:021 "For his eyes are on the ways of a man. He sees all his goings.
034:022 There is no darkness, nor thick gloom, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.
034:023 For he doesn't need to consider a man further, that he should go before God in judgment.
034:024 He breaks in pieces mighty men in ways past finding out, and sets others in their place.
034:025 Therefore he takes knowledge of their works. He overturns them in the night, so that they are destroyed.
034:026 He strikes them as wicked men in the open sight of others;
034:027 because they turned aside from following him, and wouldn't pay attention to any of his ways,
034:028 so that they caused the cry of the poor to come to him.
He heard the cry of the afflicted.
034:029 When he gives quietness, who then can condemn? When he hides his face, who then can see him? Alike whether to a nation, or to a man,
034:030 that the godless man may not reign, that there be no one to ensnare the people.
034:031 "For has any said to God, 'I am guilty, but I will not offend any more.
034:032 Teach me that which I don't see. If I have done iniquity,
I will do it no more'?
034:033 Shall his recompense be as you desire, that you refuse it?
For you must choose, and not I. Therefore speak what you know.
034:034 Men of understanding will tell me, yes, every wise man who hears me:
034:035 'Job speaks without knowledge. His words are without wisdom.'
034:036 I wish that Job were tried to the end, because of his answering like wicked men.
034:037 For he adds rebellion to his sin. He claps his hands among us, and multiplies his words against God."
035:001 Moreover Elihu answered,
035:002 "Do you think this to be your right, or do you say,
'My righteousness is more than God's,'
035:003 That you ask, 'What advantage will it be to you?
What profit shall I have, more than if I had sinned?'
035:004 I will answer you, and your companions with you.
035:005 Look to the heavens, and see. See the skies, which are higher than you.
035:006 If you have sinned, what effect do you have against him?
If your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him?
035:007 If you are righteous, what do you give him? Or what does he receive from your hand?
035:008 Your wickedness may hurt a man as you are, and your righteousness may profit a son of man.
035:009 "By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out.
They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty.
035:010 But none says, 'Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night,
035:011 who teaches us more than the animals of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the sky?'
035:012 There they cry, but none gives answer, because of the pride of evil men.
035:013 Surely God will not hear an empty cry, neither will the
Almighty regard it.
035:014 How much less when you say you don't see him. The cause is before him, and you wait for him!
035:015 But now, because he has not visited in his anger, neither does he greatly regard arrogance.
035:016 Therefore Job opens his mouth with empty talk, and he multiplies words without knowledge."
036:001 Elihu also continued, and said,
036:002 "Bear with me a little, and I will show you; for I still have something to say on God's behalf.
036:003 I will get my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.
036:004 For truly my words are not false. One who is perfect in knowledge is with you.
036:005 "Behold, God is mighty, and doesn't despise anyone.
He is mighty in strength of understanding.
036:006 He doesn't preserve the life of the wicked, but gives to the afflicted their right.
036:007 He doesn't withdraw his eyes from the righteous, but with kings on the throne, he sets them forever, and they are exalted.
036:008 If they are bound in fetters, and are taken in the cords of afflictions,
036:009 then he shows them their work, and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly.
036:010 He also opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity.
036:011 If they listen and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.
036:012 But if they don't listen, they shall perish by the sword; they shall die without knowledge.
036:013 "But those who are godless in heart lay up anger.
They don't cry for help when he binds them.
036:014 They die in youth. Their life perishes among the unclean.
036:015 He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear in oppression.
036:016 Yes, he would have allured you out of distress, into a broad place, where there is no restriction. That which is set on your table would be full of fatness.
036:017 "But you are full of the judgment of the wicked.
Judgment and justice take hold of you.
036:018 Don't let riches entice you to wrath, neither let the great size of a bribe turn you aside.
036:019 Would your wealth sustain you in distress, or all the might of your strength?
036:020 Don't desire the night, when people are cut off in their place.
036:021 Take heed, don't regard iniquity; for you have chosen this rather than affliction.
036:022 Behold, God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him?
036:023 Who has prescribed his way for him? Or who can say,
'You have committed unrighteousness?'
036:024 "Remember that you magnify his work, whereof men have sung.
036:025 All men have looked thereon. Man sees it afar off.
036:026 Behold, God is great, and we don't know him. The number of his years is unsearchable.
036:027 For he draws up the drops of water, which distill in rain from his vapor,
036:028 Which the skies pour down and which drop on man abundantly.
036:029 Yes, can any understand the spreading of the clouds, and the thunderings of his pavilion?
036:030 Behold, he spreads his light around him. He covers the bottom of the sea.
036:031 For by these he judges the people. He gives food in abundance.
036:032 He covers his hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark.
036:033 Its noise tells about him, and the livestock also concerning the storm that comes up.
037:001 "Yes, at this my heart trembles, and is moved out of its place.
037:002 Hear, oh, hear the noise of his voice, the sound that goes out of his mouth.
037:003 He sends it forth under the whole sky, and his lightning to the ends of the earth.
037:004 After it a voice roars. He thunders with the voice of his majesty.
He doesn't hold back anything when his voice is heard.
037:005 God thunders marvelously with his voice. He does great things, which we can't comprehend.
037:006 For he says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth;' likewise to the shower of rain, and to the showers of his mighty rain.
037:007 He seals up the hand of every man, that all men whom he has made may know it.
037:008 Then the animals take cover, and remain in their dens.
037:009 Out of its chamber comes the storm, and cold out of the north.
037:010 By the breath of God, ice is given, and the breadth of the waters is frozen.
037:011 Yes, he loads the thick cloud with moisture. He spreads abroad the cloud of his lightning.
037:012 It is turned round about by his guidance, that they may do whatever he commands them on the surface of the habitable world,
037:013 Whether it is for correction, or for his land, or for loving kindness, that he causes it to come.
037:014 "Listen to this, Job. Stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God.
037:015 Do you know how God controls them, and causes the lightning of his cloud to shine?
037:016 Do you know the workings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge?
037:017 You whose clothing is warm, when the earth is still by reason of the south wind?
037:018 Can you, with him, spread out the sky, which is strong as a cast metal mirror?
037:019 Teach us what we shall tell him, for we can't make our case by reason of darkness.
037:020 Shall it be told him that I would speak? Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up?
037:021 Now men don't see the light which is bright in the skies, but the wind passes, and clears them.
037:022 Out of the north comes golden splendor. With God is awesome majesty.
037:023 We can't reach the Almighty. He is exalted in power.
In justice and great righteousness, he will not oppress.
037:024 Therefore men revere him. He doesn't regard any who are wise of heart."
038:001 Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind,
038:002 "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
038:003 Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer me!
038:004 "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Declare, if you have understanding.
038:005 Who determined the measures of it, if you know?
Or who stretched the line on it?
038:006 Whereupon were the foundations of it fastened?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
038:007 when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
038:008 "Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth from the womb,
038:009 when I made clouds its garment, and wrapped it in thick darkness,
038:010 marked out for it my bound, set bars and doors,
038:011 and said, 'Here you may come, but no further. Here shall your proud waves be stayed?'
038:012 "Have you commanded the morning in your days, and caused the dawn to know its place;
038:013 that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and shake the wicked out of it?
038:014 It is changed as clay under the seal, and stands forth as a garment.
038:015 From the wicked, their light is withheld. The high arm is broken.
038:016 "Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep?
038:017 Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?
038:018 Have you comprehended the earth in its breadth? Declare, if you know it all.
038:019 "What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is its place,
038:020 that you should take it to its bound, that you should discern the paths to its house?
038:021 Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!
038:022 Have you entered the treasuries of the snow, or have you seen the treasures of the hail,
038:023 which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?
038:024 By what way is the lightning distributed, or the east wind scattered on the earth?
038:025 Who has cut a channel for the flood water, or the path for the thunderstorm;
038:026 To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; on the wilderness, in which there is no man;
038:027 to satisfy the waste and desolate ground, to cause the tender grass to spring forth?
038:028 Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew?
038:029 Out of whose womb came the ice? The gray frost of the sky, who has given birth to it?
038:030 The waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen.
038:031 "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion?
038:032 Can you lead forth the constellations in their season?
Or can you guide the Bear with her cubs?
038:033 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you establish the dominion of it over the earth?
038:034 "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, That abundance of waters may cover you?
038:035 Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go?
Do they report to you, 'Here we are?'
038:036 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to the mind?
038:037 Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of the sky,
038:038 when the dust runs into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together?
038:039 "Can you hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
038:040 when they crouch in their dens, and lie in wait in the thicket?
038:041 Who provides for the raven his prey, when his young ones cry to God, and wander for lack of food?
039:001 "Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you watch when the doe bears fawns?
039:002 Can you number the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they give birth?
039:003 They bow themselves, they bring forth their young, they end their labor pains.
039:004 Their young ones become strong. They grow up in the open field.
They go forth, and don't return again.
039:005 "Who has set the wild donkey free? Or who has loosened the bonds of the swift donkey,
039:006 Whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place?
039:007 He scorns the tumult of the city, neither does he hear the shouting of the driver.
039:008 The range of the mountains is his pasture, He searches after every green thing.
039:009 "Will the wild ox be content to serve you? Or will he stay by your feeding trough? 039:010 Can you hold the wild ox in the furrow with his harness?
Or will he till the valleys after you?
039:011 Will you trust him, because his strength is great?
Or will you leave to him your labor?
039:012 Will you confide in him, that he will bring home your seed, and gather the grain of your threshing floor?
039:013 "The wings of the ostrich wave proudly; but are they the feathers and plumage of love?
039:014 For she leaves her eggs on the earth, warms them in the dust,
039:015 and forgets that the foot may crush them, or that the wild animal may trample them.
039:016 She deals harshly with her young ones, as if they were not hers.
Though her labor is in vain, she is without fear,
039:017 because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding.
039:018 When she lifts up herself on high, she scorns the horse and his rider.
039:019 "Have you given the horse might? Have you clothed his neck with a quivering mane?
039:020 Have you made him to leap as a locust? The glory of his snorting is awesome.
039:021 He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength.
He goes out to meet the armed men.
039:022 He mocks at fear, and is not dismayed, neither does he turn back from the sword.
039:023 The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and the javelin.
039:024 He eats up the ground with fierceness and rage, neither does he stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
039:025 As often as the trumpet sounds he snorts, 'Aha!' He smells the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
039:026 "Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and stretches her wings toward the south?
039:027 Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up, and makes his nest on high?
039:028 On the cliff he dwells, and makes his home, on the point of the cliff, and the stronghold.
039:029 From there he spies out the prey. His eyes see it afar off.
039:030 His young ones also suck up blood. Where the slain are, there he is."
040:001 Moreover Yahweh answered Job,
040:002 "Shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it."
040:003 Then Job answered Yahweh,
040:004 "Behold, I am of small account. What shall I answer you?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
040:005 I have spoken once, and I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further."
040:006 Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind,
040:007 "Now brace yourself like a man. I will question you, and you will answer me.
040:008 Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified?
040:009 Or do you have an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like him?
040:010 "Now deck yourself with excellency and dignity.
Array yourself with honor and majesty.
040:011 Pour out the fury of your anger. Look at everyone who is proud, and bring him low.
040:012 Look at everyone who is proud, and humble him. Crush the wicked in their place.
040:013 Hide them in the dust together. Bind their faces in the hidden place.
040:014 Then I will also admit to you that your own right hand can save you.
040:015 "See now, behemoth, which I made as well as you.
He eats grass as an ox.
040:016 Look now, his strength is in his thighs. His force is in the muscles of his belly.
040:017 He moves his tail like a cedar. The sinews of his thighs are knit together.
040:018 His bones are like tubes of brass. His limbs are like bars of iron.
040:019 He is the chief of the ways of God. He who made him gives him his sword.
040:020 Surely the mountains produce food for him, where all the animals of the field play.
040:021 He lies under the lotus trees, in the covert of the reed, and the marsh.
040:022 The lotuses cover him with their shade. The willows of the brook surround him.
040:023 Behold, if a river overflows, he doesn't tremble.
He is confident, though the Jordan swells even to his mouth.
040:024 Shall any take him when he is on the watch, or pierce through his nose with a snare?
041:001 "Can you draw out Leviathan{Leviathan is a name for a crocodile or similar creature.} with a fishhook, or press down his tongue with a cord?
041:002 Can you put a rope into his nose, or pierce his jaw through with a hook?
041:003 Will he make many petitions to you, or will he speak soft words to you?
041:004 Will he make a covenant with you, that you should take him for a servant forever?
041:005 Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your girls?
041:006 Will traders barter for him? Will they part him among the merchants?
041:007 Can you fill his skin with barbed irons, or his head with fish spears?
041:008 Lay your hand on him. Remember the battle, and do so no more.
041:009 Behold, the hope of him is in vain. Won't one be cast down even at the sight of him?
041:010 None is so fierce that he dare stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me?
041:011 Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?
Everything under the heavens is mine.
041:012 "I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, nor his mighty strength, nor his goodly frame.
041:013 Who can strip off his outer garment? Who shall come within his jaws?
041:014 Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror.
041:015 Strong scales are his pride, shut up together with a close seal.
041:016 One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.
041:017 They are joined one to another. They stick together, so that they can't be pulled apart.
041:018 His sneezing flashes out light. His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.
041:019 Out of his mouth go burning torches. Sparks of fire leap forth.
041:020 Out of his nostrils a smoke goes, as of a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
041:021 His breath kindles coals. A flame goes forth from his mouth.
041:022 There is strength in his neck. Terror dances before him.
041:023 The flakes of his flesh are joined together. They are firm on him.
They can't be moved.
041:024 His heart is as firm as a stone, yes, firm as the lower millstone.
041:025 When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid.
They retreat before his thrashing.
041:026 If one attacks him with the sword, it can't prevail; nor the spear, the dart, nor the pointed shaft.
041:027 He counts iron as straw; and brass as rotten wood.
041:028 The arrow can't make him flee. Sling stones are like chaff to him.
041:029 Clubs are counted as stubble. He laughs at the rushing of the javelin.
041:030 His undersides are like sharp potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
041:031 He makes the deep to boil like a pot. He makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
041:032 He makes a path shine after him. One would think the deep had white hair.
041:033 On earth there is not his equal, that is made without fear.
041:034 He sees everything that is high. He is king over all the sons of pride."
042:001 Then Job answered Yahweh,
042:002 "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be restrained.
042:003 You asked, 'Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?'
therefore I have uttered that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn't know.
042:004 You said, 'Listen, now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you will answer me.'
042:005 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.
042:006 Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
042:007 It was so, that after Yahweh had spoken these words to Job, Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.
042:008 Now therefore, take to yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept him, that I not deal with you according to your folly.
For you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has."
042:009 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did what Yahweh commanded them, and Yahweh accepted Job.
042:010 Yahweh turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends.
Yahweh gave Job twice as much as he had before.
042:011 Then came there to him all his brothers, and all his sisters, and all those who had been of his acquaintance before, and ate bread with him in his house. They comforted him, and consoled him concerning all the evil that Yahweh had brought on him.
Everyone also gave him a piece of money,{literally, kesitah, a unit of money, probably silver} and everyone a ring of gold.
042:012 So Yahweh blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.
He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand female donkeys.
042:013 He had also seven sons and three daughters.
042:014 He called the name of the first, Jemimah; and the name of the second, Keziah; and the name of the third, Keren Happuch.
042:015 In all the land were no women found so beautiful as the daughters of Job. Their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers.
042:016 After this Job lived one hundred forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, to four generations.
042:017 So Job died, being old and full of days.

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Table of Contents

Book 18 Job 001:001 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God, and turned away from evil. 001:002 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 001:003 His possessions also were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the children of the east. 001:004 His sons went and held a feast in the house of each one on his birthday; and they sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. 001:005 It was so, when the days of their feasting had run their course, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, "It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts." Thus did Job continually. 001:006 Now it happened on the day when the God's sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan also came among them. 001:007 Yahweh said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." 001:008 Yahweh said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant, Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil." 001:009 Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing? 001:010 Haven't you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. 001:011 But put forth your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face." 001:012 Yahweh said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don't put forth your hand." So Satan went forth from the presence of Yahweh. 001:013 It fell on a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house, 001:014 that there came a messenger to Job, and said, "The oxen were plowing, and the donkeys feeding beside them, 001:015 and the Sabeans attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you." 001:016 While he was still speaking, there also came another, and said, "The fire of God has fallen from the sky, and has burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you." 001:017 While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, "The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you." 001:018 While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, "Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house, 001:019 and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you." 001:020 Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped. 001:021 He said, "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh." 001:022 In all this, Job did not sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing. 002:001 Again it happened on the day when the God's sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan came also among them to present himself before Yahweh. 002:002 Yahweh said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." 002:003 Yahweh said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause." 002:004 Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "Skin for skin. Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 002:005 But put forth your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face." 002:006 Yahweh said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life." 002:007 So Satan went forth from the presence of Yahweh, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head. 002:008 He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat among the ashes. 002:009 Then his wife said to him, "Do you still maintain your integrity? Renounce God, and die." 002:010 But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" In all this Job didn't sin with his lips. 002:011 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him. 002:012 When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn't recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky. 002:013 So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great. 003:001 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. 003:002 Job answered: 003:003 "Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, 'There is a boy conceived.' 003:004 Let that day be darkness. Don't let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it. 003:005 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes black the day terrify it. 003:006 As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months. 003:007 Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein. 003:008 Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan. 003:009 Let the stars of the twilight of it be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning, 003:010 because it didn't shut up the doors of my mother's womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes. 003:011 "Why didn't I die from the womb? Why didn't I give up the spirit when my mother bore me? 003:012 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should suck? 003:013 For now should I have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest, 003:014 with kings and counselors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves; 003:015 or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver: 003:016 or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light. 003:017 There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest. 003:018 There the prisoners are at ease together. They don't hear the voice of the taskmaster. 003:019 The small and the great are there. The servant is free from his master. 003:020 "Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul, 003:021 Who long for death, but it doesn't come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, 003:022 who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? 003:023 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, whom God has hedged in? 003:024 For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water. 003:025 For the thing which I fear comes on me, That which I am afraid of comes to me. 003:026 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; but trouble comes." 004:001 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered, 004:002 "If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking? 004:003 Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands. 004:004 Your words have supported him who was falling, You have made firm the feeble knees. 004:005 But now it is come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled. 004:006 Isn't your piety your confidence? Isn't the integrity of your ways your hope? 004:007 "Remember, now, whoever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off? 004:008 According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same. 004:009 By the breath of God they perish. By the blast of his anger are they consumed. 004:010 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken. 004:011 The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad. 004:012 "Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it. 004:013 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, 004:014 fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. 004:015 Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up. 004:016 It stood still, but I couldn't discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. Silence, then I heard a voice, saying, 004:017 'Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? 004:018 Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error. 004:019 How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth! 004:020 Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it. 004:021 Isn't their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.' 005:001 "Call now; is there any who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? 005:002 For resentment kills the foolish man, and jealousy kills the simple. 005:003 I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habitation. 005:004 His children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate. Neither is there any to deliver them, 005:005 whose harvest the hungry eats up, and take it even out of the thorns. The snare gapes for their substance. 005:006 For affliction doesn't come forth from the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground; 005:007 but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. 005:008 "But as for me, I would seek God. I would commit my cause to God, 005:009 who does great things that can't be fathomed, marvelous things without number; 005:010 who gives rain on the earth, and sends waters on the fields; 005:011 so that he sets up on high those who are low, those who mourn are exalted to safety. 005:012 He frustrates the devices of the crafty, So that their hands can't perform their enterprise. 005:013 He takes the wise in their own craftiness; the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong. 005:014 They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night. 005:015 But he saves from the sword of their mouth, even the needy from the hand of the mighty. 005:016 So the poor has hope, and injustice shuts her mouth. 005:017 "Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects. Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty. 005:018 For he wounds, and binds up. He injures, and his hands make whole. 005:019 He will deliver you in six troubles; yes, in seven there shall no evil touch you. 005:020 In famine he will redeem you from death; in war, from the power of the sword. 005:021 You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, neither shall you be afraid of destruction when it comes. 005:022 At destruction and famine you shall laugh, neither shall you be afraid of the animals of the earth. 005:023 For you shall be in league with the stones of the field. The animals of the field shall be at peace with you. 005:024 You shall know that your tent is in peace. You shall visit your fold, and shall miss nothing. 005:025 You shall know also that your seed shall be great, Your offspring as the grass of the earth. 005:026 You shall come to your grave in a full age, like a shock of grain comes in its season. 005:027 Look this, we have searched it, so it is. Hear it, and know it for your good." 006:001 Then Job answered, 006:002 "Oh that my anguish were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances! 006:003 For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, therefore have my words been rash. 006:004 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me. 006:005 Does the wild donkey bray when he has grass? Or does the ox low over his fodder? 006:006 Can that which has no flavor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? 006:007 My soul refuses to touch them. They are as loathsome food to me. 006:008 "Oh that I might have my request, that God would grant the thing that I long for, 006:009 even that it would please God to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off! 006:010 Be it still my consolation, yes, let me exult in pain that doesn't spare, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One. 006:011 What is my strength, that I should wait? What is my end, that I should be patient? 006:012 Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass? 006:013 Isn't it that I have no help in me, That wisdom is driven quite from me? 006:014 "To him who is ready to faint, kindness should be shown from his friend; even to him who forsakes the fear of the Almighty. 006:015 My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the channel of brooks that pass away; 006:016 Which are black by reason of the ice, in which the snow hides itself. 006:017 In the dry season, they vanish. When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place. 006:018 The caravans that travel beside them turn aside. They go up into the waste, and perish. 006:019 The caravans of Tema looked. The companies of Sheba waited for them. 006:020 They were distressed because they were confident. They came there, and were confounded. 006:021 For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid. 006:022 Did I say, 'Give to me?' or, 'Offer a present for me from your substance?' 006:023 or, 'Deliver me from the adversary's hand?' or, 'Redeem me from the hand of the oppressors?' 006:024 "Teach me, and I will hold my peace. Cause me to understand wherein I have erred. 006:025 How forcible are words of uprightness! But your reproof, what does it reprove? 006:026 Do you intend to reprove words, seeing that the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind? 006:027 Yes, you would even cast lots for the fatherless, and make merchandise of your friend. 006:028 Now therefore be pleased to look at me, for surely I shall not lie to your face. 006:029 Please return. Let there be no injustice. Yes, return again. My cause is righteous. 006:030 Is there injustice on my tongue? Can't my taste discern mischievous things? 007:001 "Isn't a man forced to labor on earth? Aren't his days like the days of a hired hand? 007:002 As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages, 007:003 so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me. 007:004 When I lie down, I say, 'When shall I arise, and the night be gone?' I toss and turn until the dawning of the day. 007:005 My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh. 007:006 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope. 007:007 Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good. 007:008 The eye of him who sees me shall see me no more. Your eyes shall be on me, but I shall not be. 007:009 As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol shall come up no more. 007:010 He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. 007:011 "Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 007:012 Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me? 007:013 When I say, 'My bed shall comfort me. My couch shall ease my complaint;' 007:014 then you scare me with dreams, and terrify me through visions: 007:015 so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones. 007:016 I loathe my life. I don't want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath. 007:017 What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him, 007:018 that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment? 007:019 How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle? 007:020 If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself? 007:021 Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now shall I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I shall not be." 008:001 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, 008:002 "How long will you speak these things? Shall the words of your mouth be a mighty wind? 008:003 Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert righteousness? 008:004 If your children have sinned against him, He has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience. 008:005 If you want to seek God diligently, make your supplication to the Almighty. 008:006 If you were pure and upright, surely now he would awaken for you, and make the habitation of your righteousness prosperous. 008:007 Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would greatly increase. 008:008 "Please inquire of past generations. Find out about the learning of their fathers. 008:009 (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow.) 008:010 Shall they not teach you, tell you, and utter words out of their heart? 008:011 "Can the papyrus grow up without mire? Can the rushes grow without water? 008:012 While it is yet in its greenness, not cut down, it withers before any other reed. 008:013 So are the paths of all who forget God. The hope of the godless man shall perish, 008:014 Whose confidence shall break apart, Whose trust is a spider's web. 008:015 He shall lean on his house, but it shall not stand. He shall cling to it, but it shall not endure. 008:016 He is green before the sun. His shoots go forth over his garden. 008:017 His roots are wrapped around the rock pile. He sees the place of stones. 008:018 If he is destroyed from his place, then it shall deny him, saying, 'I have not seen you.' 008:019 Behold, this is the joy of his way: out of the earth, others shall spring. 008:020 "Behold, God will not cast away a blameless man, neither will he uphold the evil-doers. 008:021 He will still fill your mouth with laughter, your lips with shouting. 008:022 Those who hate you shall be clothed with shame. The tent of the wicked shall be no more." 009:001 Then Job answered, 009:002 "Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God? 009:003 If he is pleased to contend with him, he can't answer him one time in a thousand. 009:004 God who is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who has hardened himself against him, and prospered? 009:005 He removes the mountains, and they don't know it, when he overturns them in his anger. 009:006 He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble. 009:007 He commands the sun, and it doesn't rise, and seals up the stars. 009:008 He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea. 009:009 He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. 009:010 He does great things past finding out; yes, marvelous things without number. 009:011 Behold, he goes by me, and I don't see him. He passes on also, but I don't perceive him. 009:012 Behold, he snatches away. Who can hinder him? Who will ask him, 'What are you doing?' 009:013 "God will not withdraw his anger. The helpers of Rahab stoop under him. 009:014 How much less shall I answer him, And choose my words to argue with him? 009:015 Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn't answer him. I would make supplication to my judge. 009:016 If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I wouldn't believe that he listened to my voice. 009:017 For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause. 009:018 He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness. 009:019 If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty! If of justice, 'Who,' says he, 'will summon me?' 009:020 Though I am righteous, my own mouth shall condemn me. Though I am blameless, it shall prove me perverse. 009:021 I am blameless. I don't regard myself. I despise my life. 009:022 "It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked. 009:023 If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent. 009:024 The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of the judges of it. If not he, then who is it? 009:025 "Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away, they see no good, 009:026 They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey. 009:027 If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and cheer up;' 009:028 I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that you will not hold me innocent. 009:029 I shall be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain? 009:030 If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye, 009:031 yet you will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes shall abhor me. 009:032 For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgment. 009:033 There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both. 009:034 Let him take his rod away from me. Let his terror not make me afraid; 009:035 then I would speak, and not fear him, for I am not so in myself. 010:001 "My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. 010:002 I will tell God, 'Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me. 010:003 Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked? 010:004 Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees? 010:005 Are your days as the days of mortals, or your years as man's years, 010:006 that you inquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin? 010:007 Although you know that I am not wicked, there is no one who can deliver out of your hand. 010:008 "'Your hands have framed me and fashioned me altogether, yet you destroy me. 010:009 Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again? 010:010 Haven't you poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? 010:011 You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. 010:012 You have granted me life and loving kindness. Your visitation has preserved my spirit. 010:013 Yet you hid these things in your heart. I know that this is with you: 010:014 if I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity. 010:015 If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still shall not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace, and conscious of my affliction. 010:016 If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me. 010:017 You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me. 010:018 "'Why, then, have you brought me forth out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me. 010:019 I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. 010:020 Aren't my days few? Cease then. Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort, 010:021 before I go where I shall not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death; 010:022 the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.'" 011:001 Then Zophar, the Naamathite, answered, 011:002 "Shouldn't the multitude of words be answered? Should a man full of talk be justified? 011:003 Should your boastings make men hold their peace? When you mock, shall no man make you ashamed? 011:004 For you say, 'My doctrine is pure. I am clean in your eyes.' 011:005 But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against you, 011:006 that he would show you the secrets of wisdom! For true wisdom has two sides. Know therefore that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves. 011:007 "Can you fathom the mystery of God? Or can you probe the limits of the Almighty? 011:008 They are high as heaven. What can you do? They are deeper than Sheol. What can you know? 011:009 Its measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. 011:010 If he passes by, or confines, or convenes a court, then who can oppose him? 011:011 For he knows false men. He sees iniquity also, even though he doesn't consider it. 011:012 An empty-headed man becomes wise when a man is born as a wild donkey's colt. 011:013 "If you set your heart aright, stretch out your hands toward him. 011:014 If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away. Don't let unrighteousness dwell in your tents. 011:015 Surely then shall you lift up your face without spot; Yes, you shall be steadfast, and shall not fear: 011:016 for you shall forget your misery. You shall remember it as waters that are passed away. 011:017 Life shall be clearer than the noonday. Though there is darkness, it shall be as the morning. 011:018 You shall be secure, because there is hope. Yes, you shall search, and shall take your rest in safety. 011:019 Also you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. Yes, many shall court your favor. 011:020 But the eyes of the wicked shall fail. They shall have no way to flee. Their hope shall be the giving up of the spirit." 012:001 Then Job answered, 012:002 "No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom shall die with you. 012:003 But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Yes, who doesn't know such things as these? 012:004 I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke. 012:005 In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips. 012:006 The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure, who carry their God in their hands. 012:007 "But ask the animals, now, and they shall teach you; the birds of the sky, and they shall tell you. 012:008 Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you. The fish of the sea shall declare to you. 012:009 Who doesn't know that in all these, the hand of Yahweh has done this, 012:010 in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind? 012:011 Doesn't the ear try words, even as the palate tastes its food? 012:012 With aged men is wisdom, in length of days understanding. 012:013 "With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding. 012:014 Behold, he breaks down, and it can't be built again. He imprisons a man, and there can be no release. 012:015 Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up. Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth. 012:016 With him is strength and wisdom. The deceived and the deceiver are his. 012:017 He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools. 012:018 He loosens the bond of kings. He binds their waist with a belt. 012:019 He leads priests away stripped, and overthrows the mighty. 012:020 He removes the speech of those who are trusted, and takes away the understanding of the elders. 012:021 He pours contempt on princes, and loosens the belt of the strong. 012:022 He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings out to light the shadow of death. 012:023 He increases the nations, and he destroys them. He enlarges the nations, and he leads them captive. 012:024 He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. 012:025 They grope in the dark without light. He makes them stagger like a drunken man. 013:001 "Behold, my eye has seen all this. My ear has heard and understood it. 013:002 What you know, I know also. I am not inferior to you. 013:003 "Surely I would speak to the Almighty. I desire to reason with God. 013:004 But you are forgers of lies. You are all physicians of no value. 013:005 Oh that you would be completely silent! Then you would be wise. 013:006 Hear now my reasoning. Listen to the pleadings of my lips. 013:007 Will you speak unrighteously for God, and talk deceitfully for him? 013:008 Will you show partiality to him? Will you contend for God? 013:009 Is it good that he should search you out? Or as one deceives a man, will you deceive him? 013:010 He will surely reprove you if you secretly show partiality. 013:011 Shall not his majesty make you afraid, And his dread fall on you? 013:012 Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes, Your defenses are defenses of clay. 013:013 "Be silent, leave me alone, that I may speak. Let come on me what will. 013:014 Why should I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand? 013:015 Behold, he will kill me. I have no hope. Nevertheless, I will maintain my ways before him. 013:016 This also shall be my salvation, that a godless man shall not come before him. 013:017 Hear diligently my speech. Let my declaration be in your ears. 013:018 See now, I have set my cause in order. I know that I am righteous. 013:019 Who is he who will contend with me? For then would I hold my peace and give up the spirit. 013:020 "Only don't do two things to me; then I will not hide myself from your face: 013:021 withdraw your hand far from me; and don't let your terror make me afraid. 013:022 Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you answer me. 013:023 How many are my iniquities and sins? Make me know my disobedience and my sin. 013:024 Why hide you your face, and hold me for your enemy? 013:025 Will you harass a driven leaf? Will you pursue the dry stubble? 013:026 For you write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth: 013:027 You also put my feet in the stocks, and mark all my paths. You set a bound to the soles of my feet, 013:028 though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten. 014:001 "Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble. 014:002 He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn't continue. 014:003 Do you open your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgment with you? 014:004 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. 014:005 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can't pass; 014:006 Look away from him, that he may rest, until he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day. 014:007 "For there is hope for a tree, If it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease. 014:008 Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground, 014:009 yet through the scent of water it will bud, and put forth boughs like a plant. 014:010 But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he? 014:011 As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up, 014:012 so man lies down and doesn't rise. Until the heavens are no more, they shall not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep. 014:013 "Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret, until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! 014:014 If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my release should come. 014:015 You would call, and I would answer you. You would have a desire to the work of your hands. 014:016 But now you number my steps. Don't you watch over my sin? 014:017 My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity. 014:018 "But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place; 014:019 The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man. 014:020 You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away. 014:021 His sons come to honor, and he doesn't know it. They are brought low, but he doesn't perceive it of them. 014:022 But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns." 015:001 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered, 015:002 "Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind? 015:003 Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches with which he can do no good? 015:004 Yes, you do away with fear, and hinder devotion before God. 015:005 For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty. 015:006 Your own mouth condemns you, and not I. Yes, your own lips testify against you. 015:007 "Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought forth before the hills? 015:008 Have you heard the secret counsel of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself? 015:009 What do you know, that we don't know? What do you understand, which is not in us? 015:010 With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, much elder than your father. 015:011 Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word that is gentle toward you? 015:012 Why does your heart carry you away? Why do your eyes flash, 015:013 That you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth? 015:014 What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? 015:015 Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight; 015:016 how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water! 015:017 "I will show you, listen to me; that which I have seen I will declare: 015:018 (Which wise men have told by their fathers, and have not hidden it; 015:019 to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them): 015:020 the wicked man writhes in pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor. 015:021 A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer shall come on him. 015:022 He doesn't believe that he shall return out of darkness. He is waited for by the sword. 015:023 He wanders abroad for bread, saying, 'Where is it?' He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand. 015:024 Distress and anguish make him afraid. They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle. 015:025 Because he has stretched out his hand against God, and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty; 015:026 he runs at him with a stiff neck, with the thick shields of his bucklers; 015:027 because he has covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat on his thighs. 015:028 He has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps. 015:029 He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall their possessions be extended on the earth. 015:030 He shall not depart out of darkness. The flame shall dry up his branches. By the breath of God's mouth shall he go away. 015:031 Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness shall be his reward. 015:032 It shall be accomplished before his time. His branch shall not be green. 015:033 He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive tree. 015:034 For the company of the godless shall be barren, and fire shall consume the tents of bribery. 015:035 They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. Their heart prepares deceit." 016:001 Then Job answered, 016:002 "I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters! 016:003 Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer? 016:004 I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul's place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you, 016:005 but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you. 016:006 "Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased? 016:007 But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made desolate all my company. 016:008 You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face. 016:009 He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me. 016:010 They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me. 016:011 God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked. 016:012 I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target. 016:013 His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground. 016:014 He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs on me like a giant. 016:015 I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust. 016:016 My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids. 016:017 Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure. 016:018 "Earth, don't cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest. 016:019 Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me is on high. 016:020 My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God, 016:021 that he would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of man with his neighbor! 016:022 For when a few years are come, I shall go the way from whence I shall not return. 017:001 "My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me. 017:002 Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation. 017:003 "Now give a pledge, be collateral for me with yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me? 017:004 For you have hidden their heart from understanding, Therefore shall you not exalt them. 017:005 He who denounces his friends for a prey, Even the eyes of his children shall fail. 017:006 "But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face. 017:007 My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow. 017:008 Upright men shall be astonished at this. The innocent shall stir up himself against the godless. 017:009 Yet shall the righteous hold on his way. He who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger. 017:010 But as for you all, come on now again; I shall not find a wise man among you. 017:011 My days are past, my plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart. 017:012 They change the night into day, saying 'The light is near' in the presence of darkness. 017:013 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness, 017:014 If I have said to corruption, 'You are my father;' to the worm, 'My mother,' and 'my sister;' 017:015 where then is my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it? 017:016 Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?" 018:001 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, 018:002 "How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak. 018:003 Why are we counted as animals, which have become unclean in your sight? 018:004 You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed out of its place? 018:005 "Yes, the light of the wicked shall be put out, The spark of his fire shall not shine. 018:006 The light shall be dark in his tent. His lamp above him shall be put out. 018:007 The steps of his strength shall be shortened. His own counsel shall cast him down. 018:008 For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh. 018:009 A snare will take him by the heel. A trap will catch him. 018:010 A noose is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him in the way. 018:011 Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall chase him at his heels. 018:012 His strength shall be famished. Calamity shall be ready at his side. 018:013 The members of his body shall be devoured. The firstborn of death shall devour his members. 018:014 He shall be rooted out of his tent where he trusts. He shall be brought to the king of terrors. 018:015 There shall dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulfur shall be scattered on his habitation. 018:016 His roots shall be dried up beneath. Above shall his branch be cut off. 018:017 His memory shall perish from the earth. He shall have no name in the street. 018:018 He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. 018:019 He shall have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he sojourned. 018:020 Those who come after shall be astonished at his day, as those who went before were frightened. 018:021 Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. This is the place of him who doesn't know God." 019:001 Then Job answered, 019:002 "How long will you torment me, and crush me with words? 019:003 You have reproached me ten times. You aren't ashamed that you attack me. 019:004 If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself. 019:005 If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach; 019:006 know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net. 019:007 "Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice. 019:008 He has walled up my way so that I can't pass, and has set darkness in my paths. 019:009 He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. 019:010 He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope he has plucked up like a tree. 019:011 He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries. 019:012 His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent. 019:013 "He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. 019:014 My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me. 019:015 Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight. 019:016 I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth. 019:017 My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother. 019:018 Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me. 019:019 All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me. 019:020 My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. 019:021 "Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me. 019:022 Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh? 019:023 "Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! 019:024 That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! 019:025 But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth. 019:026 After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God, 019:027 Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger. "My heart is consumed within me. 019:028 If you say, 'How we will persecute him!' because the root of the matter is found in me, 019:029 be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment." 020:001 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered, 020:002 "Therefore do my thoughts give answer to me, even by reason of my haste that is in me. 020:003 I have heard the reproof which puts me to shame. The spirit of my understanding answers me. 020:004 Don't you know this from old time, since man was placed on earth, 020:005 that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment? 020:006 Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds, 020:007 yet he shall perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him shall say, 'Where is he?' 020:008 He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found. Yes, he shall be chased away like a vision of the night. 020:009 The eye which saw him shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more see him. 020:010 His children shall seek the favor of the poor. His hands shall give back his wealth. 020:011 His bones are full of his youth, but youth shall lie down with him in the dust. 020:012 "Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue, 020:013 though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth; 020:014 yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom within him. 020:015 He has swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly. 020:016 He shall suck cobra venom. The viper's tongue shall kill him. 020:017 He shall not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter. 020:018 That for which he labored he shall restore, and shall not swallow it down. According to the substance that he has gotten, he shall not rejoice. 020:019 For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he shall not build it up. 020:020 "Because he knew no quietness within him, he shall not save anything of that in which he delights. 020:021 There was nothing left that he didn't devour, therefore his prosperity shall not endure. 020:022 In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress shall overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery shall come on him. 020:023 When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating. 020:024 He shall flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow shall strike him through. 020:025 He draws it forth, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him. 020:026 All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire shall devour him. It shall consume that which is left in his tent. 020:027 The heavens shall reveal his iniquity. The earth shall rise up against him. 020:028 The increase of his house shall depart. They shall rush away in the day of his wrath. 020:029 This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God." 021:001 Then Job answered, 021:002 "Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation. 021:003 Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on. 021:004 As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn't I be impatient? 021:005 Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth. 021:006 When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh. 021:007 "Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power? 021:008 Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes. 021:009 Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. 021:010 Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don't miscarry. 021:011 They send forth their little ones like a flock. Their children dance. 021:012 They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe. 021:013 They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol. 021:014 They tell God, 'Depart from us, for we don't want to know about your ways. 021:015 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?' 021:016 Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me. 021:017 "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? 021:018 How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away? 021:019 You say, 'God lays up his iniquity for his children.' Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it. 021:020 Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. 021:021 For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off? 021:022 "Shall any teach God knowledge, seeing he judges those who are high? 021:023 One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. 021:024 His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened. 021:025 Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good. 021:026 They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them. 021:027 "Behold, I know your thoughts, the devices with which you would wrong me. 021:028 For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?' 021:029 Haven't you asked wayfaring men? Don't you know their evidences, 021:030 that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led forth to the day of wrath? 021:031 Who shall declare his way to his face? Who shall repay him what he has done? 021:032 Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb. 021:033 The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall draw after him, as there were innumerable before him. 021:034 So how can you comfort me with nonsense, seeing that in your answers there remains only falsehood?" 022:001 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered, 022:002 "Can a man be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself. 022:003 Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that you are righteous? Or does it benefit him, that you make your ways perfect? 022:004 Is it for your piety that he reproves you, that he enters with you into judgment? 022:005 Isn't your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your iniquities. 022:006 For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing. 022:007 You haven't given water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry. 022:008 But as for the mighty man, he had the earth. The honorable man, he lived in it. 022:009 You have sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken. 022:010 Therefore snares are round about you. Sudden fear troubles you, 022:011 or darkness, so that you can not see, and floods of waters cover you. 022:012 "Isn't God in the heights of heaven? See the height of the stars, how high they are! 022:013 You say, 'What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness? 022:014 Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he doesn't see. He walks on the vault of the sky.' 022:015 Will you keep the old way, which wicked men have trodden, 022:016 who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a stream, 022:017 who said to God, 'Depart from us;' and, 'What can the Almighty do for us?' 022:018 Yet he filled their houses with good things, but the counsel of the wicked is far from me. 022:019 The righteous see it, and are glad. The innocent ridicule them, 022:020 saying, 'Surely those who rose up against us are cut off. The fire has consumed the remnant of them.' 022:021 "Acquaint yourself with him, now, and be at peace. Thereby good shall come to you. 022:022 Please receive instruction from his mouth, and lay up his words in your heart. 022:023 If you return to the Almighty, you shall be built up, if you put away unrighteousness far from your tents. 022:024 Lay your treasure in the dust, the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. 022:025 The Almighty will be your treasure, and precious silver to you. 022:026 For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty, and shall lift up your face to God. 022:027 You shall make your prayer to him, and he will hear you. You shall pay your vows. 022:028 You shall also decree a thing, and it shall be established to you. Light shall shine on your ways. 022:029 When they cast down, you shall say, 'be lifted up.' He will save the humble person. 022:030 He will even deliver him who is not innocent. Yes, he shall be delivered through the cleanness of your hands." 023:001 Then Job answered, 023:002 "Even today my complaint is rebellious. His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning. 023:003 Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat! 023:004 I would set my cause in order before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. 023:005 I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would tell me. 023:006 Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No, but he would listen to me. 023:007 There the upright might reason with him, so I should be delivered forever from my judge. 023:008 "If I go east, he is not there; if west, I can't find him; 023:009 He works to the north, but I can't see him. He turns south, but I can't catch a glimpse of him. 023:010 But he knows the way that I take. When he has tried me, I shall come forth like gold. 023:011 My foot has held fast to his steps. I have kept his way, and not turned aside. 023:012 I haven't gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. 023:013 But he stands alone, and who can oppose him? What his soul desires, even that he does. 023:014 For he performs that which is appointed for me. Many such things are with him. 023:015 Therefore I am terrified at his presence. When I consider, I am afraid of him. 023:016 For God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me. 023:017 Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither did he cover the thick darkness from my face. 024:001 "Why aren't times laid up by the Almighty? Why don't those who know him see his days? 024:002 There are people who remove the landmarks. They violently take away flocks, and feed them. 024:003 They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow's ox for a pledge. 024:004 They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves. 024:005 Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go forth to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children. 024:006 They cut their provender in the field. They glean the vineyard of the wicked. 024:007 They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold. 024:008 They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter. 024:009 There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor, 024:010 So that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves. 024:011 They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst. 024:012 From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn't regard the folly. 024:013 "These are of those who rebel against the light. They don't know its ways, nor abide in its paths. 024:014 The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief. 024:015 The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, 'No eye shall see me.' He disguises his face. 024:016 In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don't know the light. 024:017 For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness, for they know the terrors of the thick darkness. 024:018 "They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their portion is cursed in the earth. They don't turn into the way of the vineyards. 024:019 Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned. 024:020 The womb shall forget him. The worm shall feed sweetly on him. He shall be no more remembered. Unrighteousness shall be broken as a tree. 024:021 He devours the barren who don't bear. He shows no kindness to the widow. 024:022 Yet God preserves the mighty by his power. He rises up who has no assurance of life. 024:023 God gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways. 024:024 They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain. 024:025 If it isn't so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?" 025:001 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, 025:002 "Dominion and fear are with him. He makes peace in his high places. 025:003 Can his armies be counted? On whom does his light not arise? 025:004 How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean? 025:005 Behold, even the moon has no brightness, and the stars are not pure in his sight; 025:006 How much less man, who is a worm, the son of man, who is a worm!" 026:001 Then Job answered, 026:002 "How have you helped him who is without power! How have you saved the arm that has no strength! 026:003 How have you counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge! 026:004 To whom have you uttered words? Whose spirit came forth from you? 026:005 "Those who are deceased tremble, those beneath the waters and all that live in them. 026:006 Sheol{Sheol is the lower world or the grave.} is naked before God, and Abaddon{Abaddon means Destroyer.} has no covering. 026:007 He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth on nothing. 026:008 He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not burst under them. 026:009 He encloses the face of his throne, and spreads his cloud on it. 026:010 He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters, and to the confines of light and darkness. 026:011 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his rebuke. 026:012 He stirs up the sea with his power, and by his understanding he strikes through Rahab. 026:013 By his Spirit the heavens are garnished. His hand has pierced the swift serpent. 026:014 Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways. How small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?" 027:001 Job again took up his parable, and said, 027:002 "As God lives, who has taken away my right, the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter. 027:003 (For the length of my life is still in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils); 027:004 surely my lips shall not speak unrighteousness, neither shall my tongue utter deceit. 027:005 Far be it from me that I should justify you. Until I die I will not put away my integrity from me. 027:006 I hold fast to my righteousness, and will not let it go. My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live. 027:007 "Let my enemy be as the wicked. Let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous. 027:008 For what is the hope of the godless, when he is cut off, when God takes away his life? 027:009 Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him? 027:010 Will he delight himself in the Almighty, and call on God at all times? 027:011 I will teach you about the hand of God. That which is with the Almighty will I not conceal. 027:012 Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain? 027:013 "This is the portion of a wicked man with God, the heritage of oppressors, which they receive from the Almighty. 027:014 If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword. His offspring shall not be satisfied with bread. 027:015 Those who remain of him shall be buried in death. His widows shall make no lamentation. 027:016 Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare clothing as the clay; 027:017 he may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver. 027:018 He builds his house as the moth, as a booth which the watchman makes. 027:019 He lies down rich, but he shall not do so again. He opens his eyes, and he is not. 027:020 Terrors overtake him like waters. A storm steals him away in the night. 027:021 The east wind carries him away, and he departs. It sweeps him out of his place. 027:022 For it hurls at him, and does not spare, as he flees away from his hand. 027:023 Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place. 028:001 "Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold which they refine. 028:002 Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted out of the ore. 028:003 Man sets an end to darkness, and searches out, to the furthest bound, the stones of obscurity and of thick darkness. 028:004 He breaks open a shaft away from where people live. They are forgotten by the foot. They hang far from men, they swing back and forth. 028:005 As for the earth, out of it comes bread; Underneath it is turned up as it were by fire. 028:006 Sapphires come from its rocks. It has dust of gold. 028:007 That path no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon's eye seen it. 028:008 The proud animals have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed by there. 028:009 He puts forth his hand on the flinty rock, and he overturns the mountains by the roots. 028:010 He cuts out channels among the rocks. His eye sees every precious thing. 028:011 He binds the streams that they don't trickle. The thing that is hidden he brings forth to light. 028:012 "But where shall wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding? 028:013 Man doesn't know its price; Neither is it found in the land of the living. 028:014 The deep says, 'It isn't in me.' The sea says, 'It isn't with me.' 028:015 It can't be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for its price. 028:016 It can't be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire{or, lapis lazuli}. 028:017 Gold and glass can't equal it, neither shall it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. 028:018 No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal. Yes, the price of wisdom is above rubies. 028:019 The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, Neither shall it be valued with pure gold. 028:020 Whence then comes wisdom? Where is the place of understanding? 028:021 Seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the birds of the sky. 028:022 Destruction and Death say, 'We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.' 028:023 "God understands its way, and he knows its place. 028:024 For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole sky. 028:025 He establishes the force of the wind. Yes, he measures out the waters by measure. 028:026 When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder; 028:027 then he saw it, and declared it. He established it, yes, and searched it out. 028:028 To man he said, 'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. To depart from evil is understanding.'" 029:001 Job again took up his parable, and said, 029:002 "Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; 029:003 when his lamp shone on my head, and by his light I walked through darkness, 029:004 as I was in the ripeness of my days, when the friendship of God was in my tent, 029:005 when the Almighty was yet with me, and my children were around me, 029:006 when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out streams of oil for me, 029:007 when I went forth to the city gate, when I prepared my seat in the street. 029:008 The young men saw me and hid themselves. The aged rose up and stood. 029:009 The princes refrained from talking, and laid their hand on their mouth. 029:010 The voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth. 029:011 For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it commended me: 029:012 Because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless also, who had none to help him, 029:013 the blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. 029:014 I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was as a robe and a diadem. 029:015 I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. 029:016 I was a father to the needy. The cause of him who I didn't know, I searched out. 029:017 I broke the jaws of the unrighteous, and plucked the prey out of his teeth. 029:018 Then I said, 'I shall die in my own house, I shall number my days as the sand. 029:019 My root is spread out to the waters. The dew lies all night on my branch. 029:020 My glory is fresh in me. My bow is renewed in my hand.' 029:021 "Men listened to me, waited, and kept silence for my counsel. 029:022 After my words they didn't speak again. My speech fell on them. 029:023 They waited for me as for the rain. Their mouths drank as with the spring rain. 029:024 I smiled on them when they had no confidence. They didn't reject the light of my face. 029:025 I chose out their way, and sat as chief. I lived as a king in the army, as one who comforts the mourners. 030:001 "But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs. 030:002 Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished? 030:003 They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation. 030:004 They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom are their food. 030:005 They are driven out from the midst of men. They cry after them as after a thief; 030:006 So that they dwell in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks. 030:007 Among the bushes they bray; and under the nettles they are gathered together. 030:008 They are children of fools, yes, children of base men. They were flogged out of the land. 030:009 "Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them. 030:010 They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don't hesitate to spit in my face. 030:011 For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me. 030:012 On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet, They cast up against me their ways of destruction. 030:013 They mar my path, They set forward my calamity, without anyone's help. 030:014 As through a wide breach they come, in the midst of the ruin they roll themselves in. 030:015 Terrors have turned on me. They chase my honor as the wind. My welfare has passed away as a cloud. 030:016 "Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold on me. 030:017 In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest. 030:018 By great force is my garment disfigured. It binds me about as the collar of my coat. 030:019 He has cast me into the mire. I have become like dust and ashes. 030:020 I cry to you, and you do not answer me. I stand up, and you gaze at me. 030:021 You have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of your hand you persecute me. 030:022 You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it. You dissolve me in the storm. 030:023 For I know that you will bring me to death, To the house appointed for all living. 030:024 "However doesn't one stretch out a hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help? 030:025 Didn't I weep for him who was in trouble? Wasn't my soul grieved for the needy? 030:026 When I looked for good, then evil came; When I waited for light, there came darkness. 030:027 My heart is troubled, and doesn't rest. Days of affliction have come on me. 030:028 I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help. 030:029 I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches. 030:030 My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat. 030:031 Therefore my harp has turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep. 031:001 "I made a covenant with my eyes, how then should I look lustfully at a young woman? 031:002 For what is the portion from God above, and the heritage from the Almighty on high? 031:003 Is it not calamity to the unrighteous, and disaster to the workers of iniquity? 031:004 Doesn't he see my ways, and number all my steps? 031:005 "If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hurried to deceit 031:006 (let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity); 031:007 if my step has turned out of the way, if my heart walked after my eyes, if any defilement has stuck to my hands, 031:008 then let me sow, and let another eat. Yes, let the produce of my field be rooted out. 031:009 "If my heart has been enticed to a woman, and I have laid wait at my neighbor's door, 031:010 then let my wife grind for another, and let others sleep with her. 031:011 For that would be a heinous crime. Yes, it would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges: 031:012 For it is a fire that consumes to destruction, and would root out all my increase. 031:013 "If I have despised the cause of my male servant or of my female servant, when they contended with me; 031:014 What then shall I do when God rises up? When he visits, what shall I answer him? 031:015 Didn't he who made me in the womb make him? Didn't one fashion us in the womb? 031:016 "If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, 031:017 or have eaten my morsel alone, and the fatherless has not eaten of it 031:018 (no, from my youth he grew up with me as with a father, her have I guided from my mother's womb); 031:019 if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or that the needy had no covering; 031:020 if his heart hasn't blessed me, if he hasn't been warmed with my sheep's fleece; 031:021 if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, because I saw my help in the gate, 031:022 then let my shoulder fall from the shoulder blade, and my arm be broken from the bone. 031:023 For calamity from God is a terror to me. Because his majesty, I can do nothing. 031:024 "If I have made gold my hope, and have said to the fine gold, 'You are my confidence;' 031:025 If I have rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because my hand had gotten much; 031:026 if I have seen the sun when it shined, or the moon moving in splendor, 031:027 and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my hand threw a kiss from my mouth, 031:028 this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges; for I should have denied the God who is above. 031:029 "If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him; 031:030 (yes, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking his life with a curse); 031:031 if the men of my tent have not said, 'Who can find one who has not been filled with his meat?' 031:032 (the foreigner has not lodged in the street, but I have opened my doors to the traveler); 031:033 if like Adam I have covered my transgressions, by hiding my iniquity in my heart, 031:034 because I feared the great multitude, and the contempt of families terrified me, so that I kept silence, and didn't go out of the door— 031:035 oh that I had one to hear me! (behold, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me); let the accuser write my indictment! 031:036 Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; and I would bind it to me as a crown. 031:037 I would declare to him the number of my steps. as a prince would I go near to him. 031:038 If my land cries out against me, and the furrows of it weep together; 031:039 if I have eaten the fruits of it without money, or have caused the owners of it to lose their life, 031:040 let briars grow instead of wheat, and stinkweed instead of barley." The words of Job are ended. 032:001 So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. 032:002 Then the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel, the Buzite, of the family of Ram, was kindled against Job. His wrath was kindled because he justified himself rather than God. 032:003 Also his wrath was kindled against his three friends, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job. 032:004 Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job, because they were elder than he. 032:005 When Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, his wrath was kindled. 032:006 Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered, "I am young, and you are very old; Therefore I held back, and didn't dare show you my opinion. 032:007 I said, 'Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.' 032:008 But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding. 032:009 It is not the great who are wise, nor the aged who understand justice. 032:010 Therefore I said, 'Listen to me; I also will show my opinion.' 032:011 "Behold, I waited for your words, and I listened for your reasoning, while you searched out what to say. 032:012 Yes, I gave you my full attention, but there was no one who convinced Job, or who answered his words, among you. 032:013 Beware lest you say, 'We have found wisdom, God may refute him, not man;' 032:014 for he has not directed his words against me; neither will I answer him with your speeches. 032:015 "They are amazed. They answer no more. They don't have a word to say. 032:016 Shall I wait, because they don't speak, because they stand still, and answer no more? 032:017 I also will answer my part, and I also will show my opinion. 032:018 For I am full of words. The spirit within me constrains me. 032:019 Behold, my breast is as wine which has no vent; like new wineskins it is ready to burst. 032:020 I will speak, that I may be refreshed. I will open my lips and answer. 032:021 Please don't let me respect any man's person, neither will I give flattering titles to any man. 032:022 For I don't know how to give flattering titles; or else my Maker would soon take me away. 033:001 "However, Job, Please hear my speech, and listen to all my words. 033:002 See now, I have opened my mouth. My tongue has spoken in my mouth. 033:003 My words shall utter the uprightness of my heart. That which my lips know they shall speak sincerely. 033:004 The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. 033:005 If you can, answer me. Set your words in order before me, and stand forth. 033:006 Behold, I am toward God even as you are. I am also formed out of the clay. 033:007 Behold, my terror shall not make you afraid, neither shall my pressure be heavy on you. 033:008 "Surely you have spoken in my hearing, I have heard the voice of your words, saying, 033:009 'I am clean, without disobedience. I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me. 033:010 Behold, he finds occasions against me. He counts me for his enemy. 033:011 He puts my feet in the stocks. He marks all my paths.' 033:012 "Behold, I will answer you. In this you are not just, for God is greater than man. 033:013 Why do you strive against him, because he doesn't give account of any of his matters? 033:014 For God speaks once, yes twice, though man pays no attention. 033:015 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, in slumbering on the bed; 033:016 Then he opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction, 033:017 That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. 033:018 He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword. 033:019 He is chastened also with pain on his bed, with continual strife in his bones; 033:020 So that his life abhors bread, and his soul dainty food. 033:021 His flesh is so consumed away, that it can't be seen. His bones that were not seen stick out. 033:022 Yes, his soul draws near to the pit, and his life to the destroyers. 033:023 "If there is beside him an angel, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show to man what is right for him; 033:024 then God is gracious to him, and says, 'Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.' 033:025 His flesh shall be fresher than a child's. He returns to the days of his youth. 033:026 He prays to God, and he is favorable to him, so that he sees his face with joy. He restores to man his righteousness. 033:027 He sings before men, and says, 'I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it didn't profit me. 033:028 He has redeemed my soul from going into the pit. My life shall see the light.' 033:029 "Behold, God works all these things, twice, yes three times, with a man, 033:030 to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of the living. 033:031 Mark well, Job, and listen to me. Hold your peace, and I will speak. 033:032 If you have anything to say, answer me. Speak, for I desire to justify you. 033:033 If not, listen to me. Hold your peace, and I will teach you wisdom." 034:001 Moreover Elihu answered, 034:002 "Hear my words, you wise men. Give ear to me, you who have knowledge. 034:003 For the ear tries words, as the palate tastes food. 034:004 Let us choose for us that which is right. Let us know among ourselves what is good. 034:005 For Job has said, 'I am righteous, God has taken away my right: 034:006 Notwithstanding my right I am considered a liar. My wound is incurable, though I am without disobedience.' 034:007 What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water, 034:008 Who goes in company with the workers of iniquity, and walks with wicked men? 034:009 For he has said, 'It profits a man nothing that he should delight himself with God.' 034:010 "Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding: far be it from God, that he should do wickedness, from the Almighty, that he should commit iniquity. 034:011 For the work of a man he will render to him, and cause every man to find according to his ways. 034:012 Yes surely, God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert justice. 034:013 Who gave him a charge over the earth? or who has appointed him over the whole world? 034:014 If he set his heart on himself, If he gathered to himself his spirit and his breath, 034:015 all flesh would perish together, and man would turn again to dust. 034:016 "If now you have understanding, hear this. Listen to the voice of my words. 034:017 Shall even one who hates justice govern? Will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty?— 034:018 Who says to a king, 'Vile!' or to nobles, 'Wicked!'? 034:019 Who doesn't respect the persons of princes, nor regards the rich more than the poor; for they all are the work of his hands. 034:020 In a moment they die, even at midnight. The people are shaken and pass away. The mighty are taken away without a hand. 034:021 "For his eyes are on the ways of a man. He sees all his goings. 034:022 There is no darkness, nor thick gloom, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. 034:023 For he doesn't need to consider a man further, that he should go before God in judgment. 034:024 He breaks in pieces mighty men in ways past finding out, and sets others in their place. 034:025 Therefore he takes knowledge of their works. He overturns them in the night, so that they are destroyed. 034:026 He strikes them as wicked men in the open sight of others; 034:027 because they turned aside from following him, and wouldn't pay attention to any of his ways, 034:028 so that they caused the cry of the poor to come to him. He heard the cry of the afflicted. 034:029 When he gives quietness, who then can condemn? When he hides his face, who then can see him? Alike whether to a nation, or to a man, 034:030 that the godless man may not reign, that there be no one to ensnare the people. 034:031 "For has any said to God, 'I am guilty, but I will not offend any more. 034:032 Teach me that which I don't see. If I have done iniquity, I will do it no more'? 034:033 Shall his recompense be as you desire, that you refuse it? For you must choose, and not I. Therefore speak what you know. 034:034 Men of understanding will tell me, yes, every wise man who hears me: 034:035 'Job speaks without knowledge. His words are without wisdom.' 034:036 I wish that Job were tried to the end, because of his answering like wicked men. 034:037 For he adds rebellion to his sin. He claps his hands among us, and multiplies his words against God." 035:001 Moreover Elihu answered, 035:002 "Do you think this to be your right, or do you say, 'My righteousness is more than God's,' 035:003 That you ask, 'What advantage will it be to you? What profit shall I have, more than if I had sinned?' 035:004 I will answer you, and your companions with you. 035:005 Look to the heavens, and see. See the skies, which are higher than you. 035:006 If you have sinned, what effect do you have against him? If your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him? 035:007 If you are righteous, what do you give him? Or what does he receive from your hand? 035:008 Your wickedness may hurt a man as you are, and your righteousness may profit a son of man. 035:009 "By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out. They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty. 035:010 But none says, 'Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night, 035:011 who teaches us more than the animals of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the sky?' 035:012 There they cry, but none gives answer, because of the pride of evil men. 035:013 Surely God will not hear an empty cry, neither will the Almighty regard it. 035:014 How much less when you say you don't see him. The cause is before him, and you wait for him! 035:015 But now, because he has not visited in his anger, neither does he greatly regard arrogance. 035:016 Therefore Job opens his mouth with empty talk, and he multiplies words without knowledge." 036:001 Elihu also continued, and said, 036:002 "Bear with me a little, and I will show you; for I still have something to say on God's behalf. 036:003 I will get my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker. 036:004 For truly my words are not false. One who is perfect in knowledge is with you. 036:005 "Behold, God is mighty, and doesn't despise anyone. He is mighty in strength of understanding. 036:006 He doesn't preserve the life of the wicked, but gives to the afflicted their right. 036:007 He doesn't withdraw his eyes from the righteous, but with kings on the throne, he sets them forever, and they are exalted. 036:008 If they are bound in fetters, and are taken in the cords of afflictions, 036:009 then he shows them their work, and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly. 036:010 He also opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity. 036:011 If they listen and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. 036:012 But if they don't listen, they shall perish by the sword; they shall die without knowledge. 036:013 "But those who are godless in heart lay up anger. They don't cry for help when he binds them. 036:014 They die in youth. Their life perishes among the unclean. 036:015 He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear in oppression. 036:016 Yes, he would have allured you out of distress, into a broad place, where there is no restriction. That which is set on your table would be full of fatness. 036:017 "But you are full of the judgment of the wicked. Judgment and justice take hold of you. 036:018 Don't let riches entice you to wrath, neither let the great size of a bribe turn you aside. 036:019 Would your wealth sustain you in distress, or all the might of your strength? 036:020 Don't desire the night, when people are cut off in their place. 036:021 Take heed, don't regard iniquity; for you have chosen this rather than affliction. 036:022 Behold, God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him? 036:023 Who has prescribed his way for him? Or who can say, 'You have committed unrighteousness?' 036:024 "Remember that you magnify his work, whereof men have sung. 036:025 All men have looked thereon. Man sees it afar off. 036:026 Behold, God is great, and we don't know him. The number of his years is unsearchable. 036:027 For he draws up the drops of water, which distill in rain from his vapor, 036:028 Which the skies pour down and which drop on man abundantly. 036:029 Yes, can any understand the spreading of the clouds, and the thunderings of his pavilion? 036:030 Behold, he spreads his light around him. He covers the bottom of the sea. 036:031 For by these he judges the people. He gives food in abundance. 036:032 He covers his hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark. 036:033 Its noise tells about him, and the livestock also concerning the storm that comes up. 037:001 "Yes, at this my heart trembles, and is moved out of its place. 037:002 Hear, oh, hear the noise of his voice, the sound that goes out of his mouth. 037:003 He sends it forth under the whole sky, and his lightning to the ends of the earth. 037:004 After it a voice roars. He thunders with the voice of his majesty. He doesn't hold back anything when his voice is heard. 037:005 God thunders marvelously with his voice. He does great things, which we can't comprehend. 037:006 For he says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth;' likewise to the shower of rain, and to the showers of his mighty rain. 037:007 He seals up the hand of every man, that all men whom he has made may know it. 037:008 Then the animals take cover, and remain in their dens. 037:009 Out of its chamber comes the storm, and cold out of the north. 037:010 By the breath of God, ice is given, and the breadth of the waters is frozen. 037:011 Yes, he loads the thick cloud with moisture. He spreads abroad the cloud of his lightning. 037:012 It is turned round about by his guidance, that they may do whatever he commands them on the surface of the habitable world, 037:013 Whether it is for correction, or for his land, or for loving kindness, that he causes it to come. 037:014 "Listen to this, Job. Stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God. 037:015 Do you know how God controls them, and causes the lightning of his cloud to shine? 037:016 Do you know the workings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge? 037:017 You whose clothing is warm, when the earth is still by reason of the south wind? 037:018 Can you, with him, spread out the sky, which is strong as a cast metal mirror? 037:019 Teach us what we shall tell him, for we can't make our case by reason of darkness. 037:020 Shall it be told him that I would speak? Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up? 037:021 Now men don't see the light which is bright in the skies, but the wind passes, and clears them. 037:022 Out of the north comes golden splendor. With God is awesome majesty. 037:023 We can't reach the Almighty. He is exalted in power. In justice and great righteousness, he will not oppress. 037:024 Therefore men revere him. He doesn't regard any who are wise of heart." 038:001 Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind, 038:002 "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 038:003 Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer me! 038:004 "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. 038:005 Who determined the measures of it, if you know? Or who stretched the line on it? 038:006 Whereupon were the foundations of it fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, 038:007 when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 038:008 "Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth from the womb, 038:009 when I made clouds its garment, and wrapped it in thick darkness, 038:010 marked out for it my bound, set bars and doors, 038:011 and said, 'Here you may come, but no further. Here shall your proud waves be stayed?' 038:012 "Have you commanded the morning in your days, and caused the dawn to know its place; 038:013 that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and shake the wicked out of it? 038:014 It is changed as clay under the seal, and stands forth as a garment. 038:015 From the wicked, their light is withheld. The high arm is broken. 038:016 "Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep? 038:017 Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? 038:018 Have you comprehended the earth in its breadth? Declare, if you know it all. 038:019 "What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is its place, 038:020 that you should take it to its bound, that you should discern the paths to its house? 038:021 Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! 038:022 Have you entered the treasuries of the snow, or have you seen the treasures of the hail, 038:023 which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? 038:024 By what way is the lightning distributed, or the east wind scattered on the earth? 038:025 Who has cut a channel for the flood water, or the path for the thunderstorm; 038:026 To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; on the wilderness, in which there is no man; 038:027 to satisfy the waste and desolate ground, to cause the tender grass to spring forth? 038:028 Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew? 038:029 Out of whose womb came the ice? The gray frost of the sky, who has given birth to it? 038:030 The waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen. 038:031 "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion? 038:032 Can you lead forth the constellations in their season? Or can you guide the Bear with her cubs? 038:033 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you establish the dominion of it over the earth? 038:034 "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, That abundance of waters may cover you? 038:035 Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go? Do they report to you, 'Here we are?' 038:036 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to the mind? 038:037 Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of the sky, 038:038 when the dust runs into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together? 038:039 "Can you hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, 038:040 when they crouch in their dens, and lie in wait in the thicket? 038:041 Who provides for the raven his prey, when his young ones cry to God, and wander for lack of food? 039:001 "Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears fawns? 039:002 Can you number the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they give birth? 039:003 They bow themselves, they bring forth their young, they end their labor pains. 039:004 Their young ones become strong. They grow up in the open field. They go forth, and don't return again. 039:005 "Who has set the wild donkey free? Or who has loosened the bonds of the swift donkey, 039:006 Whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place? 039:007 He scorns the tumult of the city, neither does he hear the shouting of the driver. 039:008 The range of the mountains is his pasture, He searches after every green thing. 039:009 "Will the wild ox be content to serve you? Or will he stay by your feeding trough? 039:010 Can you hold the wild ox in the furrow with his harness? Or will he till the valleys after you? 039:011 Will you trust him, because his strength is great? Or will you leave to him your labor? 039:012 Will you confide in him, that he will bring home your seed, and gather the grain of your threshing floor? 039:013 "The wings of the ostrich wave proudly; but are they the feathers and plumage of love? 039:014 For she leaves her eggs on the earth, warms them in the dust, 039:015 and forgets that the foot may crush them, or that the wild animal may trample them. 039:016 She deals harshly with her young ones, as if they were not hers. Though her labor is in vain, she is without fear, 039:017 because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding. 039:018 When she lifts up herself on high, she scorns the horse and his rider. 039:019 "Have you given the horse might? Have you clothed his neck with a quivering mane? 039:020 Have you made him to leap as a locust? The glory of his snorting is awesome. 039:021 He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength. He goes out to meet the armed men. 039:022 He mocks at fear, and is not dismayed, neither does he turn back from the sword. 039:023 The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and the javelin. 039:024 He eats up the ground with fierceness and rage, neither does he stand still at the sound of the trumpet. 039:025 As often as the trumpet sounds he snorts, 'Aha!' He smells the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. 039:026 "Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and stretches her wings toward the south? 039:027 Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up, and makes his nest on high? 039:028 On the cliff he dwells, and makes his home, on the point of the cliff, and the stronghold. 039:029 From there he spies out the prey. His eyes see it afar off. 039:030 His young ones also suck up blood. Where the slain are, there he is." 040:001 Moreover Yahweh answered Job, 040:002 "Shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it." 040:003 Then Job answered Yahweh, 040:004 "Behold, I am of small account. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. 040:005 I have spoken once, and I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further." 040:006 Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind, 040:007 "Now brace yourself like a man. I will question you, and you will answer me. 040:008 Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified? 040:009 Or do you have an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like him? 040:010 "Now deck yourself with excellency and dignity. Array yourself with honor and majesty. 040:011 Pour out the fury of your anger. Look at everyone who is proud, and bring him low. 040:012 Look at everyone who is proud, and humble him. Crush the wicked in their place. 040:013 Hide them in the dust together. Bind their faces in the hidden place. 040:014 Then I will also admit to you that your own right hand can save you. 040:015 "See now, behemoth, which I made as well as you. He eats grass as an ox. 040:016 Look now, his strength is in his thighs. His force is in the muscles of his belly. 040:017 He moves his tail like a cedar. The sinews of his thighs are knit together. 040:018 His bones are like tubes of brass. His limbs are like bars of iron. 040:019 He is the chief of the ways of God. He who made him gives him his sword. 040:020 Surely the mountains produce food for him, where all the animals of the field play. 040:021 He lies under the lotus trees, in the covert of the reed, and the marsh. 040:022 The lotuses cover him with their shade. The willows of the brook surround him. 040:023 Behold, if a river overflows, he doesn't tremble. He is confident, though the Jordan swells even to his mouth. 040:024 Shall any take him when he is on the watch, or pierce through his nose with a snare? 041:001 "Can you draw out Leviathan{Leviathan is a name for a crocodile or similar creature.} with a fishhook, or press down his tongue with a cord? 041:002 Can you put a rope into his nose, or pierce his jaw through with a hook? 041:003 Will he make many petitions to you, or will he speak soft words to you? 041:004 Will he make a covenant with you, that you should take him for a servant forever? 041:005 Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your girls? 041:006 Will traders barter for him? Will they part him among the merchants? 041:007 Can you fill his skin with barbed irons, or his head with fish spears? 041:008 Lay your hand on him. Remember the battle, and do so no more. 041:009 Behold, the hope of him is in vain. Won't one be cast down even at the sight of him? 041:010 None is so fierce that he dare stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me? 041:011 Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Everything under the heavens is mine. 041:012 "I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, nor his mighty strength, nor his goodly frame. 041:013 Who can strip off his outer garment? Who shall come within his jaws? 041:014 Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror. 041:015 Strong scales are his pride, shut up together with a close seal. 041:016 One is so near to another, that no air can come between them. 041:017 They are joined one to another. They stick together, so that they can't be pulled apart. 041:018 His sneezing flashes out light. His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. 041:019 Out of his mouth go burning torches. Sparks of fire leap forth. 041:020 Out of his nostrils a smoke goes, as of a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. 041:021 His breath kindles coals. A flame goes forth from his mouth. 041:022 There is strength in his neck. Terror dances before him. 041:023 The flakes of his flesh are joined together. They are firm on him. They can't be moved. 041:024 His heart is as firm as a stone, yes, firm as the lower millstone. 041:025 When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid. They retreat before his thrashing. 041:026 If one attacks him with the sword, it can't prevail; nor the spear, the dart, nor the pointed shaft. 041:027 He counts iron as straw; and brass as rotten wood. 041:028 The arrow can't make him flee. Sling stones are like chaff to him. 041:029 Clubs are counted as stubble. He laughs at the rushing of the javelin. 041:030 His undersides are like sharp potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. 041:031 He makes the deep to boil like a pot. He makes the sea like a pot of ointment. 041:032 He makes a path shine after him. One would think the deep had white hair. 041:033 On earth there is not his equal, that is made without fear. 041:034 He sees everything that is high. He is king over all the sons of pride." 042:001 Then Job answered Yahweh, 042:002 "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be restrained. 042:003 You asked, 'Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?' therefore I have uttered that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn't know. 042:004 You said, 'Listen, now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you will answer me.' 042:005 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. 042:006 Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." 042:007 It was so, that after Yahweh had spoken these words to Job, Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has. 042:008 Now therefore, take to yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept him, that I not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has." 042:009 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did what Yahweh commanded them, and Yahweh accepted Job. 042:010 Yahweh turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends. Yahweh gave Job twice as much as he had before. 042:011 Then came there to him all his brothers, and all his sisters, and all those who had been of his acquaintance before, and ate bread with him in his house. They comforted him, and consoled him concerning all the evil that Yahweh had brought on him. Everyone also gave him a piece of money,{literally, kesitah, a unit of money, probably silver} and everyone a ring of gold. 042:012 So Yahweh blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand female donkeys. 042:013 He had also seven sons and three daughters. 042:014 He called the name of the first, Jemimah; and the name of the second, Keziah; and the name of the third, Keren Happuch. 042:015 In all the land were no women found so beautiful as the daughters of Job. Their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. 042:016 After this Job lived one hundred forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, to four generations. 042:017 So Job died, being old and full of days.

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