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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