Job 8: 1 - 10: 22
1Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, |
2“How long will you speak these things? |
Shall the words of your mouth be a mighty wind? |
3Does God pervert justice? |
Or does the Almighty pervert righteousness? |
4If your children have sinned against him, |
he has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience. |
5If you want to seek God diligently, |
make your supplication to the Almighty. |
6If you were pure and upright, |
surely now he would awaken for you, |
and make the habitation of your righteousness prosperous. |
7Though your beginning was small, |
yet your latter end would greatly increase. |
8“Please enquire of past generations. |
Find out about the learning of their fathers. |
9(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, |
because our days on earth are a shadow.) |
10Shall they not teach you, tell you, |
and utter words out of their heart? |
11“Can the papyrus grow up without mire? |
Can the rushes grow without water? |
12While it is yet in its greenness, not cut down, |
it withers before any other reed. |
13So are the paths of all who forget God. |
The hope of the godless man will perish, |
14Whose confidence will break apart, |
Whose trust is a spider’s web. |
15He will lean on his house, but it will not stand. |
He will cling to it, but it will not endure. |
16He is green before the sun. |
His shoots go out along his garden. |
17His roots are wrapped around the rock pile. |
He sees the place of stones. |
18If he is destroyed from his place, |
then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have not seen you.’ |
19Behold, this is the joy of his way: |
out of the earth, others will spring. |
20“Behold, God will not cast away a blameless man, |
neither will he uphold the evildoers. |
21He will still fill your mouth with laughter, |
your lips with shouting. |
22Those who hate you will be clothed with shame. |
The tent of the wicked will be no more.” |
1Then Job answered, |
2“Truly I know that it is so, |
but how can man be just with God? |
3If he is pleased to contend with him, |
he can’t answer him one time in a thousand. |
4God is wise in heart, and mighty in strength. |
Who has hardened himself against him and prospered? |
5He removes the mountains, and they don’t know it, |
when he overturns them in his anger. |
6He shakes the earth out of its place. |
Its pillars tremble. |
7He commands the sun and it doesn’t rise, |
and seals up the stars. |
8He alone stretches out the heavens, |
and treads on the waves of the sea. |
9He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, |
and the rooms of the south. |
10He does great things past finding out; |
yes, marvellous things without number. |
11Behold, he goes by me, and I don’t see him. |
He passes on also, but I don’t perceive him. |
12Behold, he snatches away. |
Who can hinder him? |
Who will ask him, ‘What are you doing?’ |
13“God will not withdraw his anger. |
The helpers of Rahab stoop under him. |
14How much less will I answer him, |
And choose my words to argue with him? |
15Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn’t answer him. |
I would make supplication to my judge. |
16If I had called, and he had answered me, |
yet I wouldn’t believe that he listened to my voice. |
17For he breaks me with a storm, |
and multiplies my wounds without cause. |
18He will not allow me to catch my breath, |
but fills me with bitterness. |
19If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty! |
If of justice, ‘Who,’ says he, ‘will summon me?’ |
20Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me. |
Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse. |
21I am blameless. |
I don’t respect myself. |
I despise my life. |
22“It is all the same. |
Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked. |
23If the scourge kills suddenly, |
he will mock at the trial of the innocent. |
24The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. |
He covers the faces of its judges. |
If not he, then who is it? |
25“Now my days are swifter than a runner. |
They flee away. They see no good. |
26They have passed away as the swift ships, |
as the eagle that swoops on the prey. |
27If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, |
I will put off my sad face, and cheer up;’ |
28I am afraid of all my sorrows, |
I know that you will not hold me innocent. |
29I will be condemned. |
Why then do I labour in vain? |
30If I wash myself with snow, |
and cleanse my hands with lye, |
31yet you will plunge me in the ditch. |
My own clothes will abhor me. |
32For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, |
that we should come together in judgement. |
33There is no umpire between us, |
that might lay his hand on us both. |
34Let him take his rod away from me. |
Let his terror not make me afraid; |
35then I would speak, and not fear him, |
for I am not so in myself. |
1“My soul is weary of my life. |
I will give free course to my complaint. |
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. |
2I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. |
Show me why you contend with me. |
3Is 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? |
4Do you have eyes of flesh? |
Or do you see as man sees? |
5Are your days as the days of mortals, |
or your years as man’s years, |
6that you enquire after my iniquity, |
and search after my sin? |
7Although you know that I am not wicked, |
there is no one who can deliver out of your hand. |
8“‘Your hands have framed me and fashioned me altogether, |
yet you destroy me. |
9Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. |
Will you bring me into dust again? |
10Haven’t you poured me out like milk, |
and curdled me like cheese? |
11You have clothed me with skin and flesh, |
and knit me together with bones and sinews. |
12You have granted me life and loving kindness. |
Your visitation has preserved my spirit. |
13Yet you hid these things in your heart. |
I know that this is with you: |
14if I sin, then you mark me. |
You will not acquit me from my iniquity. |
15If I am wicked, woe to me. |
If I am righteous, I still will not lift up my head, |
being filled with disgrace, |
and conscious of my affliction. |
16If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. |
Again you show yourself powerful to me. |
17You renew your witnesses against me, |
and increase your indignation on me. |
Changes and warfare are with me. |
18“‘Why, then, have you brought me out of the womb? |
I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me. |
19I should have been as though I had not been. |
I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. |
20Aren’t my days few? |
Stop! |
Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort, |
21before I go where I will not return from, |
to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death; |
22the land dark as midnight, |
of the shadow of death, |
without any order, |
where the light is as midnight.’” |
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