A Walk Through The Word

31 Job: I have made a sacred pledge with my eyes.
How then could I stare at a young woman with desire?
² And what share has God set aside for us from above?
What is the heritage we can expect from the lofty God, the Highest One?^[a]
3 Has it not been made clear these many years?
Is there not supposed to be punishment poured out on the wicked
and disaster on those wrongdoers?
⁴ Does God not see the paths of my choosing;
does He not count every single step I take?

Job: ⁵ If I have walked alongside lies
or if my feet have rushed toward deception,
⁶ Then let God weigh me on a truly balanced set of scales.
He will know and see my integrity.
⁷ If my steps have veered off God’s prescribed path
or if my heart has followed any of the evil my eyes have seen
or if my hands are soiled,
⁸ Then let me sow, but then let another one eat the produce!
Let my sprouts be pulled up by their roots!

⁹ If my heart has been seduced by another woman
or if I have waited by a friend’s door for a liaison with his wife,
¹⁰ Then let my wife be taken by another,
to grind his grain or do whatever he pleases,
And let other men kneel down over her
¹¹ because adultery is such a lewd, scandalous act,
an offense punishable by the court,
¹² For it is a fire that burns until the destruction is complete.
Had I done it, it would have undone all that I had gained.

¹³ If I have refused justice to my servants—either male or female—
when they have had cause for dispute with me,
¹⁴ Then what ought I do when God stands to judge me?
How will I answer when He calls me to account for my actions?
¹⁵ Did not God, who made me in my mother’s womb, make my servants as well?
Is He not the same One who made us each in our own mother’s womb?

¹⁶ If I have stood between the poor and the object of their desire,
if I have caused a widow to lose her love of life,
¹⁷ If I have eaten my food alone
and not shared it with the hungry orphan
¹⁸ (Indeed, from as far back as I can remember, I have cared for them all—
from my youth, been a father to the orphan;
from my own birth, cared for the widow),
¹⁹ If I have idly watched anyone die from exposure simply due to a lack of clothing
or seen the poor without any kind of covering,
²⁰ If ever people in such conditions did not physically bless and thank me
for warming them up with the fleeces of my own sheep,
²¹ If I ever used my civic strength to condemn the fatherless
simply because I knew I had allies in the courts;
²² Then let my arm be pulled from its socket!
Let my forearm be snapped off at the elbow for raising it against the orphan!
²³ See, I have always dreaded the kind of disaster wrought by God;
I was never able to withstand His majesty.

²⁴ If I have put my confidence in my stash of gold,
if I have trusted in a metal so well-refined,
²⁵ If I have exulted in my immense wealth
(for I had accumulated so much),
²⁶ If I saw the sun in its radiant glory
or the moon sliding across the sky in its splendor,
²⁷ If such sights secretly seduced my heart
and made my hand throw kisses to the false gods of sun and moon,
²⁸ Then these things, too, would have been punishable offenses
because they would have shown me untrue to the God above.

²⁹ Have I gloated at my enemy’s downfall
or been excited when he encountered evil?
³⁰ No. I have not permitted my mouth to sin
by uttering a curse against his very life.
³¹ Have my guests ever left my dwelling saying,
“Anyone still hungry? Who didn’t get enough to eat?”
³² Have I ever left the foreigner to sleep outside?
No. My door was always open to the traveler.
³³ If I have covered my sin as people do
or attempted to hide my wrongdoing in the recesses of my heart
³⁴ (Because of my fear of the opinions of the crowd
or my fright at the disdain of my family)
And kept silent hiding indoors away from all possible discovery of flaws;
³⁵ (if only someone were listening!)
Now, here to these oaths, these curses,
I make my signature!
Let the Highest One answer me!
Let my adversary put his case in writing!
³⁶ If He does, I would place it on my shoulder for all to see;
I would put it on my head and wear it like a crown.
³⁷ I would offer Him an account of the steps I’ve taken along my life’s path
and approach Him directly like a prince.

³⁸ If my land cries out against me,
if my furrows gather together to weep over my mistreatment of them,
³⁹ If I have eaten the fruit of the land
without payment to those who tend it
or exasperated the lives of its tenants, the farmers, in pursuit of greater harvest, or in poor management of them;
⁴⁰ Then let thistles grow instead of wheat
and stinkweed instead of barley.

Elihu: I am a young man,
and you are my wise elders,
So I have been here shyly creeping about in the background,
timid about sharing my opinion with you.
⁷ I thought to myself, “Age should speak first;
those advanced in years will teach wisdom.”
⁸ But alas, it turns out it is the spirit in a man, not age,
and the breath of the Highest One^[b] within him that lends understanding.
⁹ In fact, sometimes it is neither the great who are wise
nor the elderly who have an understanding of justice.
¹⁰ And so I say, “Listen to me, Job,
and I, even I, will explain what I know.”

¹¹ (turning to the three friends) After all, I waited while each of you three spoke;
I lent my ear to your insights
while you searched for what to say, looking for the right words.
¹² I paid you my utmost attention, but hear this!
Not one of you countered Job with a decent argument;
not one rebutted his statements of the case.
¹³ And don’t you dare fall back on the easy reply:
“We have found wisdom;
let God rebuke him, not just any old human!”
¹⁴ I will answer him differently,
for he has not assembled his words against me.
I will not answer him with your overly personalized and insufficient arguments.

¹⁵ They are all undone, unhinged, embarrassed!
They have no response!
Their faculty of speech has apparently failed them!
¹⁶ Should I wait a bit longer to make sure they are all done speaking,
for when they stand silent and appear to have nothing to say?
¹⁷ So now it is my turn.
I will tell you what I think.
I will impart what I know.

¹⁸ After all, I am filled to the brim with words,
and my gut reaction is to speak.
¹⁹ My insides are like fresh wine sealed up and needing to breathe.
Like a new wineskin, I am on the brink of bursting from the pressure.
²⁰ Let me speak. Then I will find relief.
Yes, I will open my mouth and answer.
²¹ You will have to pardon me
if I do not impede my words with deference to any of you
or flatter you with honorable titles.
²² After all, I am not very skilled with flattery anyway;
I have reason to believe that, if I were to engage in such senseless rhetoric,
My Maker would whisk me away from here
because this matter is so serious.

33 Elihu: So now, Job, listen closely to my words;
lend an ear to my speeches.
² Wait for it! I am about ready to part my lips;
even now, my tongue begins to stir within my mouth.
³ My words emerge from a heart of integrity;
my lips express their knowledge with sincerity.
⁴ God’s Spirit has fashioned me
and the breath of the Highest One^[c] imparts life to me.
⁵ So refute me if you can;
go ahead and make your preparations and assume your position.
⁶ But remember I am just like you; we are both God’s vessels,
both pinched from the clay and formed by Him.
⁷ Look, there is no reason for you to be afraid of me;
my hand will not feel all that heavy on you.

⁸ Job, now you have said—and I heard it—
I heard the words sounded out:
⁹ “I am pure, without sin;
innocent indeed, and there is no wrongdoing within me!
¹⁰ But oh! God has come up with reasons to accuse me;
now He considers me His enemy.
¹¹ He locks my feet in the shackles;
He watches all my paths, dogs my every step.”
¹² But listen! You are wrong in all this
because God is greater than a mere man.

¹³ Why do you argue with Him,
complaining that He refuses to account for all of His actions?
¹⁴ For God does speak in one way and even another way—
yet no one may be able to perceive what He says.
¹⁵ One kind of answer God gives
comes in the form of a dream—in a night-vision—
When deep slumber comes to people
who have lain down to sleep in their beds.
¹⁶ Yes, this is often when He opens the ears of humanity,
and seals their life-corrections in the terrors of the night
¹⁷ So that He can turn one away from his evil deeds
and put down the arrogance of the proud.
¹⁸ He does all of this so that He might hold back one soul from the pit
and protect one life from passing over to the land of death.^[d]

¹⁹ Or another kind of answer God gives comes thus:
one may be corrected through a bed of pain;
his bones may hold him in an unceasing trial,
²⁰ In which his food becomes repulsive,
and he doesn’t hunger for even his favorite meals.
²¹ His body wastes away almost to nothing,
and bones, once hidden, stick out gruesomely.
²² Thus he is sobered as his soul approaches the rim of the pit,
as his life hears the whispers of the coming messengers of death.

²³ If there is a heavenly messenger at one’s side, a mediator,
even just one out of the thousand in his regime of God’s messengers,
to proclaim what is right for that person according to God,
²⁴ And to be gracious to him and to say,
“Spare this one from descending into the pit;
I have found a ransom that will save his life!
²⁵ Then his skin will be renewed, as smooth and fresh as a child’s,
and he will be restored to the vim and vigor of his youth.”
²⁶ He will make his appeal to God, and God will grant acceptance;
he will see God’s face and shout with joy,
knowing God has restored his right standing.
²⁷ Then he comes to his fellow humans and sings out,
“I sinned and perverted what I knew to be right,
but God has not repaid me what I deserved.
²⁸ He has instead paid that ransom
and spared me from descending into the pit
and my life now sees the light.”

²⁹ Look! God does all of these things two,
even three times with a person,
³⁰ In order to guide his soul back from the rim of the pit
so the light of life might shine on him.
³¹ Lend your ear, Job, and listen well to me;
remain silent, and I will do the talking.
³² If you have anything to say to me, say it. Make your answer to me;
go ahead and speak, because I do desire to see you justified to God.
³³ But if not, then listen well to me;
stay quiet, and I will teach you wisdom.

³ O my God, shine Your light and truth
to help me see clearly,
To lead me to Your holy mountain,
to Your home.
⁴ Then I will go to God’s altar with nothing to hide.
I will go to God, my rapture;
I will sing praises to You and play my strings,
unloading my cares, unleashing my joys, to You, God, my God.

⁵ O my soul, why are you so overwrought?
Why are you so disturbed?
Why can’t I just hope in God? Despite all my emotions, I will hope in God again.
I will believe and praise the One
who saves me and is my life,
My Savior and my God.

28 Job: There is a place where silver is mined,
a place where gold is refined.
² There iron is dug from the earth,
and copper is smelted from ore.
³ Humans put an end to darkness,
and search in every last corner
For the ore that is in gloom and darkness.
⁴ In the earth they cut a shaft
in a place forgotten, far from the beaten path;
They descend on ropes,
swinging dangerously back and forth.
⁵ The ground above yields food;
the earth below is turned as if fire has destroyed it
⁶ Where earth gives up sapphires from her rocks
and bits of gold from her dirt.
⁷ No bird of prey knows this way, this secret path down below;
no falcon’s eye has ever peered into it.
⁸ No proud beast has ever reached this place;
no lordly lion has marched over it.

⁹ The miner breaks apart flinty stone,
uprooting the ancient mountains.
¹⁰ He carves tunnels through the rock,
revealing precious treasures.
¹¹ He dams up^[a] the underground streams until they cease seeping,
and he brings out into the light what was hidden there in the darkness.

¹² But where is wisdom found,
and where does understanding dwell?

¹³ Job: No human perceives wisdom’s true value,
nor has she been found in the land of the living.
¹⁴ The deep says, “She is not to be seen within me.”
“Nor within me,” says the voice of the raging sea.
¹⁵ No gold can be given in trade for wisdom,
nor a sum of silver weighed out as her price.
¹⁶ She cannot be bought with all the gold of Ophir,
neither with onyx nor sapphire.
¹⁷ The shimmer of gold and brightness of glass cannot compare,
and no refined gold jewelry is worth her in trade.
¹⁸ Perish the mention of coral and crystal;
even more than pearls is the value of wisdom.
¹⁹ Ethiopian topaz—unequal as well;
even gold, unalloyed, is too paltry indeed.
²⁰ Then from where does wisdom come?
Where does understanding dwell?
²¹ She is hidden away from every eye,
even from birds looking down from the sky.
²² Destruction and Death have both confessed,
“Rumors are all we know about her.”

²³ God understands wisdom’s path and way;
her place is known to Him alone.
²⁴ For He gazes out to the edge of the earth,
sees all that falls beneath the sky overhead.
²⁵ He lent the wind its weight and force
and measured out the waters’ spread.
²⁶ When He set a limit on the rain that falls
and made the thunderbolt a road to race,
²⁷ Then He saw wisdom and made her known,
He settled her and searched out for her a place.
²⁸ And to humankind, He said, “Now, the fear of the Lord is wisdom,
and to depart from evil is understanding.”

² Job: Ah, that I were as I once was, months ago
during the time when God oversaw me,
³ When His lamp shone above my head,
and by His light, I walked through the darkness.
⁴ Ah, to be in the ripest time of life once more—
when the intimacies of friendship with God enfolded my tent,
⁵ When the Highest One^[b] was with me
and my children encircled me,
⁶ When my steps were bathed in milk
and the rock poured out rivers of olive oil, showering my body,
⁷ When I went up to the gate of the city,
when I took my seat in the town square where the elders meet.
⁸ There the young saw me and made room for me, in deference to elders.
The old rose and stood out of respect.
⁹ The leaders stopped talking
with their hands over their mouths.
¹⁰ The voices of nobles fell to a hush;
their tongues stuck to the roofs of their mouths.
¹¹ Every ear that heard me blessed me,
and every eye that saw me testified to my greatness.
¹² After all, I rescued the poor when they cried out for help
and assisted the orphans when they had no one else.

¹³ The dying spoke their blessings over me,
and the widows sang their joyful songs honoring what I did.
¹⁴ I adorned myself in righteousness,
and it covered me;
my justice fit me like a cloak and turban—
conveying both my dignity and my authority.
¹⁵ I was the eyes for the blind,
the feet for the lame,
¹⁶ A father for the needy,
and I sought for the cause of whom I did not know.
¹⁷ I broke out the fangs of the wicked
and wrested prey from their jaws.
¹⁸ Then I said, “I will pass from this earth in the comfort of my nest.
My days will be more numerous than a beach’s grains of sand.
¹⁹ My roots will grow deep, spreading out to the water’s edge,
and in the night, the dew will come to rest on my branches.
²⁰ Respect will be accorded me every day,
my skill with the bow always new in my hand.”

²¹ People used to listen to me,
the sense of expectation visible on their faces;
they waited in silence for my advice.
²² And when I finished, they did not hurry to speak again.
They waited while my words dropped like dew upon them.
²³ Indeed, they waited for me as one waits for a good rain,
and they opened their mouths as if to catch spring showers on their tongues.
²⁴ I smiled upon them when their confidence flagged,
and they took comfort in my beaming face.^[c]
25 I led them in their way.
I sat as their leader.
I lived like a king among his troops.
I was as a happy man spreading comfort among the mourners.

30 Job: But now they mock me,
these young men whose fathers I hold in such contempt.
I wouldn’t trust them with my herds
as I do my dogs.
² What good does their strength do me?
Their potency has wilted.
³ Gaunt from starvation, haggard from hunger that drives them to gnaw the ground in the night,
a ground all wasted and hollowed-out,
⁴ They are left with the desperate foods of the famished—
plucking mallow from the bushes by the salt marshes,
and making the ashy broom tree root their staple.
⁵ The people from the town chase each one out of his neighborhood;
they howl at all of them as if they were common thieves,
⁶ And push them out to live in the deep valleys of the wadis—
those desert streams that come and go—
So these outcasts seek shelter in the overhangs and crumbling caves
that line the banks of no-man’s-land.
⁷ Braying like donkeys from the bushes,
huddled together in the prickly undergrowth are
⁸ Fools and sons of no-names,
driven by lashes out from the bosom of the land.

⁹ And now they sing of me in taunt and parody,
and make my name a byword among them.
¹⁰ They abhor me, keep their distance,
and feel free to spit in my face.
¹¹ Because God has unstrung His bowstring and stricken me with suffering,
they are no longer restrained toward me.
¹² To my right, the horde^[d] arises.
They seek to knock me off my feet,
piling their disastrous ways against me.
¹³ They lay waste to my path
and benefit from my destruction,
and no one is there to stop them.
¹⁴ As through a wall breached, they advance easily.
Their thunderstorm of wheels rolled across my ruins.
¹⁵ Alas! A storm of terrors has turned toward me and is upon me;
my dignity is blown away as by the wind;
my prosperity vanishes like a wispy cloud.

¹⁶ And now my own soul is drawn out, poured over me.
The days of misery have taken hold of me;
I am firmly in their grasp.
¹⁷ By night, my pain is at work, boring holes in my bones;
it gnaws at me and never lies down to rest.
¹⁸ With great force, God wraps around me like my clothing.
He binds tightly about my neck as if He were the collar of my tunic.^[e]
19 He has pushed me off into the mud,
and I am reduced from man to dust and ashes.
²⁰ I call out to You, God, but You refuse to answer me.
When I arise, You merely examine me.
²¹ You have changed.
Now You are cruel to me;
You employ Your strength to attack me.
²² You pull me up into the wind and make me ride upon it
until I am fractured and dissipated in the storm.
²³ I know where this ends.
You will send me off to death
and usher me to that meetinghouse where all the living one day go.

²⁴ And yet does not a person trapped in ruins stretch out his hand,
and in this disaster does he not cry out for help?^[f]
25 Did I not grieve for the hard days of another
or weep for the pains of the poor?
²⁶ And yet when I longed for the good, evil came;
when I awaited the light, thick darkness arrived instead.
²⁷ I am boiling on the inside,
and it will not quit;
yet the days of misery still come for me.
²⁸ I drift in darkness, the sun absent;
I arise in the assembly
and call out for help.
²⁹ But who will come now that I am roaming the wilderness?
I am a brother to jackals, a friend of ostriches.
³⁰ Despite my earnest cries, my skin burns until it is black and flakes off,
and my bones burn with fever.
³¹ And so my harp is tuned to the key of mourning,
and my flute is pitched to the sound of weeping.

⁴ With a broken heart,
I remember times before
When I was with Your people. Those were better days.
I used to lead them happily into the True God’s house,
Singing with joy, shouting thanksgivings with abandon,
joining the congregation in the celebration.
⁵ Why am I so overwrought?
Why am I so disturbed?
Why can’t I just hope in God?
Despite all my emotions, I will believe and praise the One
who saves me and is my life.
⁶ My God, my soul is so traumatized;
the only help is remembering You wherever I may be;
From the land of the Jordan to Hermon’s high place
to Mount Mizar.
⁷ In the roar of Your waterfalls,
ancient depths surge, calling out to the deep.
All Your waves break over me;
am I drowning?
⁸ Yet in the light of day, the Eternal shows me His love.
When night settles in and all is dark, He keeps me company—
His soothing song, a prayerful melody to the True God of my life.

⁹ Even still, I will say to the True God, my rock and strength:
“Why have You forgotten me?
Why must I live my life so depressed, crying endlessly
while my enemies have the upper hand?”
¹⁰ My enemies taunt me.
They shatter my soul the way a sword shatters a man’s bones.
They keep taunting all the day long,
“Where is He, your True God?”

¹¹ Why am I so overwrought,
Why am I so disturbed?
Why can’t I just hope in God?
Despite all my emotions, I will believe and praise the One
who saves me, my God.

² Job: So once again you are telling me my complaint amounts to rebellion,
that the heavy hand I feel upon me is smothering my groans?
³ Would that I knew where to find Him.
I would appear before Him.
⁴ I would lay my case out before Him;
I would fill up my mouth with arguments.
⁵ And then I would finally learn how He would answer me,
and I would understand what He tells me.
⁶ Would He oppose me merely with His great power? Surely not!
Surely He would show me the respect of listening to my argument.
⁷ There, in that courtroom, a moral man might hope to reason with Him,
and I would escape my Judge forever.

⁸ Alas, wherever I go, ahead or behind,
He is not there;
I am unable to find Him.
⁹ When He works on either side of me, I still cannot see Him.
I catch no glimpse of Him.
¹⁰ But He knows the course I have traveled.
And I believe that were He to prove me,
I would come out purer than gold from the fire.
¹¹ My foot has been securely set in His tracks;
I have kept to His course of life without swerving;
¹² I have not departed from the commands of His lips;
I have valued everything He says more than all else.
¹³ He alone is one True God; who can alter Him?
Whatever He desires within Himself, He does.
¹⁴ For He will carry out exactly what He has planned for me,
and in the future there are more plans to come.
¹⁵ Therefore, I am deeply troubled before Him;
when I ponder it at any length, I am terrified of Him.
¹⁶ Yes, God has melted my courage,
and the Highest One has overwhelmed me with His terror.
¹⁷ He could have turned me aside when the darkness came,
but He did not cut me off.
Nor does He hide my face from the gloom that has now overtaken me.

24 Job: Why are there not judgment times for the wicked before the Highest One?^[a]
Why do those who know Him not see His judgment days?
² After all it’s the wicked who seize land that belongs to others,
capture flocks and let them graze for themselves,
³ Drive off orphans’ donkeys,
take as collateral widows’ oxen,
⁴ Drive the needy off the road,
and force the poor into hiding together.
⁵ Look at how the poor are forced to live!
Like wild donkeys in the desert,
They spend all their energy scrounging for food,
hoping the desert provides enough to feed their children!
⁶ They forage for scraps out in the open
and glean what they can from the already-harvested vineyards of the wicked.
⁷ They settle down night after night, naked since pawning their cloaks,
and have nothing to protect them from the cold.
⁸ The hard mountain rains soak them
as they press themselves against rocks in the absence of real shelter;
⁹ The fatherless child is torn away from the breast;
the suckling babe is seized as collateral from the poor.
¹⁰ They force the poor to wander naked, no clothing to be had,
carrying the very bundles of grain they long to eat.
¹¹ They are stationed among the terraces^[b]
pressing oil from the olive that calls to their hunger;
they trample in winepresses, extracting the juice for which they thirst.
¹² At the outskirts of the city, the oppressed groan,
wounded souls crying for help,
but God fails to charge the guilty who have brought them such pain.

¹³ They were among those who rebel against the light.
They don’t want to know what makes it shine,
nor do they live their lives in its paths.
¹⁴ It is not the poor and the victim who rebel.
It is the murderer who rises before first light
And kills the poor and the needy.
And in the dark of night, he becomes the thief.
¹⁵ And the eye of the adulterer waits for the onset of dusk;
he thinks, “No one will see me,” because he disguises his face.
¹⁶ And others break into homes in the dark.
However, by day they shut themselves up inside
because they do not know the light.
¹⁷ For all of these criminals,
the morning arrives arm in arm with the threat of being found out.
It is as the shadow of death to them,
for they are at ease with the terrors of the night.

¹⁸ Job: The wicked may sit lightly on the surface of the waters,
but their bit of land, the parcel on which they live, is accursed;
In fact, they don’t even turn down the road to their vineyards
because they don’t produce.
¹⁹ Just as summer’s heat and drought melt and carry off the winter snow,
the land of the dead digests and carries away sinners.
²⁰ The very wombs whence they came forget them;
the worms will feast on them until no one remembers they existed;
the skeletons of wickedness dry up and snap like twigs.

²¹ They deliberately prey on women with no children to protect them
and don’t care to lend a hand to widows!
²² By His power, God drags off the high and mighty with the ropes of a hunter,
and though they may rise to the top, they have no assurance of true life.
²³ God may provide for them, and they may feel secure,
but His eyes are always on their ways.
²⁴ They may make their mark—to be sure—in a brief moment of glory,
but then just as quickly the wicked are gone, like the rest of humanity,
like heads of grain cut off and dried up.
²⁵ Now, if this is not the truth, then call me a liar
and count all this talk for nothing.

² Bildad: God rules over all things;
dread is His domain,
God—who makes peace and order on His own heights.
³ As for His armies, can they even be counted?
As for His light, is anyone not illuminated?
⁴ Then tell me how can a person be right with God?
How can someone born of a woman in blood be pure?
⁵ If even the moon is not bright enough
and the light of the stars is not pure in His estimation,
⁶ How much less so a human,
who is a mere worm—
The offspring of humanity,
who is a maggot!

² Job (sarcastically): What a great help you are to the powerless!
How you have held up the arm that is feeble and weak!

³ What sage counsel you have given to me, the unwise!
And what immeasurable insight you have put on display for us!
⁴ Whom did you say these words to?
Where did you get such profound inspiration?

⁵ The departed quiver below,
down deep beneath the seas
and all that is within them,
⁶ The land of the dead is exposed before God,
and the place where destruction lies is uncovered in His presence.
⁷ He stretches out the northern sky over vast reaches of emptiness;
He hangs the earth itself on nothing.
⁸ He binds up the waters into His clouds,
but the cloud does not burst from the strain.
⁹ He conceals the sight of His throne
and spreads His clouds over it to hide it from view.
¹⁰ He has encircled the waters with a horizon-boundary:
the line between day and night, light and darkness.
¹¹ The very pillars that hold up the sky quake
and are astounded by His reprisals.
¹² By His power, He stilled the sea, quelling the chaos;
by His wisdom, He pierced Rahab, evil of the sea;
¹³ By His breath, the heavens are made beautifully clear;
by His hand that ancient serpent—even as it attempted escape—is pierced through.
¹⁴ And all of this, all of these are the mere edges of His capabilities.
We are privy to only a whisper of His power.
Who then dares to claim understanding of His thunderous might?

² Job: By God—who lives and has deprived me of justice,
the Highest One^[c] who has also embittered my soul—
³ I make this proclamation:
that, while there is life in me,
While the breath of that selfsame God is in my nostrils,
⁴ My lips will not let lies escape them,
and my tongue will not form deceit.
⁵ So I will never concede that you three are right.
Until the day I die, I will not abandon my integrity just to appease you.
⁶ On the contrary, I’ll assert my innocence and never let it go;
my heart will not mock my past or my future.

⁷ May my enemy be counted as the wicked
and my adversary as the unjust.
⁸ For what hope does he who is sullied and impure have
once God lops him off from life and requires his soul?
⁹ Will God listen to his cry
when he is overtaken by distress?
¹⁰ Will he have made the Highest One his pleasure after the fact?
Will he have marked the seasons with his calls to God once it is too late?
¹¹ Let me show you what I have learned of God’s power.
I assure you I will not cover over the true nature of the Highest One’s ways.
¹² Look, you have all seen it—seen the same things I have seen here.
Why then all this vain nonsense?

¹³ Indeed, Zophar, listen closely, for what the wicked of humanity will inherit from God.
This is the heritage the Highest One bequeaths to those who oppress:
¹⁴ If the children of the wicked multiply,
they meet their end at the blade of the sword.
And even if they are fat with surplus,
the descendants of the wicked will be starved for bread.
¹⁵ Those who survive will fall to disease and be buried;
many of their widows will not mourn their deaths.
¹⁶ Though he pile up money as if it were common dirt
and clothing in heaps like mounds of clay,
¹⁷ What he may prepare, the righteous will wear;
the silver he sets aside, the innocent will divide.
¹⁸ He builds his house doomed to impermanence—
like the moth’s cocoon,
like the field watchman’s lean-to that is dismantled after the harvest.
¹⁹ He lies down to sleep a wealthy man,
but never again,
For when he opens his eyes to morning,
all is gone.
²⁰ Terrors overtake him as if they were floodwaters;
the tempest snatches him away in the dead of night.
²¹ Indeed, the sultry east wind lifts him up and away.
He is gone, swept off the place he knew as his own.
²² It will have blown against him pitilessly,
and he tries to flee from its fast-closing hand.
²³ As a final humiliation, it claps its hands against him as a man would—
sneering, hissing at him as he leaves.

¹ Blessed are those who consider the helpless.
The Eternal will stay near them, leading them to safety in times of bitter struggle.
² The Eternal defends them and preserves them,
and His blessing will find them in the land He gave them.
He moves ahead to frustrate their enemies’ plans.
³ When sickness comes, the Eternal is beside them—
to comfort them on their sickbeds and restore them to health.

⁴ And me? I cry out to Him,
“Heal my soul, O Eternal One, and show mercy
because I have sinned against You!”
⁵ My enemies are talking about me even now:
“When will death come for him and his name be forgotten?”
⁶ As they sit with me under my roof, their well wishes are empty lies.
They listen to my story
and then turn it around to tell their own version on the street.
⁷ Across the city, crowds whisper lies about me.
Their hate is strong, and they search for ways to harm me.

⁸ Some are saying: “Some vile disease has gotten hold of him.
The bed he lies in will be his deathbed.”
⁹ Even my best friend, my confidant
who has eaten my bread will stab me in the back.^[a]
10 But You, Eternal One, show mercy to me.
Extend Your gracious hand, and help me up.
I need to pay them back for what they’ve done to me.

¹¹ I realize now that Your favor has come to me,
for my enemies have yet to declare victory over me.
¹² You know and uphold me—a man of honor.
You grant me strength and life forever in Your presence.

¹³ Blessed is the Eternal, the True God of Israel.
Always and Eternal. Amen and Amen.

² Zophar: My anguished thoughts force me to respond
because I feel an urgency within myself.
³ I caught wind of your words that dishonor me,
but I am prompted to answer based on my own spirit and understanding.
⁴ Don’t you know how it has always been?
Since humankind was first put here on the earth,
⁵ The celebrations of the wicked have been brief,
and the joy of the profane lasts only a moment.
⁶ Even if he were tall enough to reach into the heavens
and his head were to reach to the clouds,
⁷ He would still perish forever, like his own excrement;
those who once looked upon him would wonder,
“Where has he gone?”
⁸ Like a dream, he flies off where no one can find him;
he is chased away only to vanish into the air like a vision of the night.
⁹ The eyes that saw him before see him no more;
his home doesn’t ever welcome him again.
¹⁰ His children beg at the door of the poor;
his hands render his wealth back to them.
¹¹ The vigor of youth had a home, a residence in his bones,
but it lies down in the dust with him.

¹² Though his wrongdoing is sweet in his mouth,
though he hides it under his tongue,
¹³ Though he holds it close and will not let it go
(but must keep it in his mouth),
¹⁴ His food will be transformed within him
into the bitter venom of the asp.
¹⁵ The wealth he has swallowed will be poison.
He will vomit it up—God will cast it out.
¹⁶ It is as they say, “He sucks the venom of asps
and is slain by the tongue of the viper.”
¹⁷ Never again will he gaze at the brook’s edge
or see streams that flow with milk and honey—
¹⁸ The food for which he worked he vomits up or cannot swallow,
and the gains of his trading, he can never enjoy.
¹⁹ After all, he’s an oppressor;
he’s crushed and forsaken the poor;
he made his home in a house he stole from another,
a house he did not build himself.

²⁰ Because he’s never known inner peace,
he has seized everything he’s ever craved.
²¹ Because he consumed all he could see, nothing is left;
his prosperity cannot last.
²² When he is fat with satisfaction,
the belt of distress will tighten around him
and the hands of the downtrodden will rise up against him.
²³ When he has filled up his belly,
God will visit him with His ferocious anger;
it will rain down on him while he is eating.
²⁴ Let him attempt to escape the iron weapon.
Instead, a bow of bronze will send death to tear into him.
²⁵ When the arrow is drawn it comes out of his back,
and the shining arrowhead comes out of his organ,
bringing terror upon him.
²⁶ A great darkness waits for and stalks everything he values.
A mysterious fire—unstoked yet burning hot—will consume him
and devour everything and everyone left behind in his tent.
²⁷ The skies will tell on him, exposing his wrongdoing;
the earth will rebel against him.
²⁸ All that he labored to build will be carried off,
washed away in the day of God’s furious anger.
²⁹ This is how it will be for the wicked of humanity before God;
this is the inheritance God bequeaths them.

² Job: Listen carefully to what I’m about to say,
and let your listening be the consolation you give me.
³ Suffer me to speak to you,
and after I’ve said what I need to say,
you may commence mocking.
⁴ Is my complaint addressed to humanity, or has it ever been?
Why shouldn’t I, by this point, be impatient with all of this?
⁵ Stay with me, and be stunned at what has happened to such a righteous person;
cover your gaping mouth with your hand.
⁶ When I think back upon everything that has gone before, I’m terrified;
my body is overtaken with trembling.
⁷ Why do the wicked live
on an ever-upward path to long life and riches?
⁸ Their children become well-established in front of them;
their offspring are guaranteed to grow up before their very eyes.
⁹ Their houses are immune to approaching terrors;
the rod of God is not on their backs punishing them.
¹⁰ Their bulls are consistent breeders;
their cows deliver healthy calves without miscarrying.
¹¹ They produce flocks of children and send them all out into the world;
their young ones dance around free of care.
¹² They still participate in celebration,
raising their voices to the song of the tambourine and the harp;
delighting in the sound of the flute.
¹³ They pass their time in the lap of abundance,
and they are even permitted to pass quickly to the land of the dead,
instead of lingering with chronic pain.
¹⁴ They tell God, “Leave us be.
We have no interest in You or Your ways.
¹⁵ Who is the Highest One^[a] anyway,
and why should we serve Him?
What can we possibly gain by asking favors of Him?
Isn’t He generous enough already?”
¹⁶ Look, don’t you see?
The wicked do not control their own wealth, God does;
I am a long way from understanding the plan for the wicked.

¹⁷ Bildad claims the flame of the wicked is blown out.
But how often is their lamp extinguished?
How often does disaster strike them or does God give them pain
because of His anger at what they’ve done?

¹⁸ How often are they as straw in the wind
or the chaff separated from the grain by fierce winds?
¹⁹ It is said, “God stores away a man’s misdeeds
and delivers them to his children.”^[b]
Let Him repay the man Himself, so the man can know it.
²⁰ Let the wicked see his ruin with his own eyes
as he drinks down the wrath of the Highest One.
²¹ After all, once he’s dead and gone and his time is up,
what will he care for his household and family?
²² Now who dares impart knowledge to God
since He stands as judge over the most powerful?
²³ One person dies when he is fit and strong,
completely secure and totally at peace;
²⁴ His body^[c] is vigorous and well fed;
his bones are strong and moist.
²⁵ Another person dies with a bitter soul,
having never even tasted goodness.
²⁶ But they lie down together in the same dust,
covered by the same blanket of worms.

²⁷ I know how your minds work, my friends,
and how you plan to wrong me—your thoughts of retribution.
²⁸ You will counter, “Show me!
Where is the palatial estate?
Where are the vaulted tents of the wicked?”
²⁹ But I say, have you never consulted with those who travel this world?
They can tell you the complexions of many lands.
But you’ve never permitted their witness
in your courts of opinion, have you?
³⁰ Well, if you had, you’d have heard
that when disaster strikes, the wicked are spared;
On the day of fury,
they are escorted safely through.
³¹ Who challenges them openly regarding their actions,
and who repays them on account of all they’ve done?
³² When death finally comes and they are laid in their graves,
guards stand watch over their tombs, fending off grave robbers.
³³ Laid to rest beside the stream, clods of earth cover them kindly;
while countless souls have gone before, all of humanity follows after.
³⁴ So, my friends, how can you continue trying to comfort me with these empty consolations?
So far, your answers have been only thinly veiled lies!

² Eliphaz: Can a strong person be of any use to God?
How about one who is wise? Can he help himself?
³ Is the Highest One^[d] made happy if you are righteous?
Does He profit from your perfect ways?
⁴ Do you really think He takes you to task because you revere Him too much?
Is this why He brings allegations against you?
⁵ Is it not possible that you are, in fact, great with wickedness
and endless in your wrongdoing?

⁶ When your relatives came to you needing money,
for no good reason you took their clothes for collateral
and left them naked.
⁷ You have never given so much as a cup of water to the thirsty
or a crumb to the hungry.
⁸ You must think only the powerful and privileged possess the land
and can live in it any way they wish.
⁹ You have sent away widows who were wanting,
and you have obliterated the only support of orphans.
¹⁰ This is why you are surrounded by snares,
why you are overcome with dreadful fears,
¹¹ Why you’re in the dark, without a glimmer to help you see,
sunk beneath the rush of flooding water.

¹² Is not God up there at the crown of the highest arc of heaven?
And the highest stars!
See how lofty they are!
¹³ But you—you say, “What does God know?
Can He send His judgments through such thick darkness?
¹⁴ Those clouds are just a veil for Him so He does not have to look upon us
while He saunters, oblivious, through the chambers of the sky.”
¹⁵ Job, are you now guardian of the ancient road
where the wicked have traveled?
¹⁶ The wicked, who are captured
and taken off before their time,
their foundations washed out by a flooded river,
¹⁷ They are the ones who tell God, “Leave us be.”
They say, “What can the Highest One do to us?”
¹⁸ How are they repaid for their insolence?
You say, “He stuffs their homes with goodness,”
Then you shake your head and mutter,
“Far be it from me to understand the thoughts and plans of the wicked.”
¹⁹ The righteous would look upon their ruin and laugh for delight;
the innocent would taunt
²⁰ By saying, “Sure enough, our enemies have gone to their annihilation,
and what they’ve left behind feeds a hungry fire.”

²¹ Now be of use to God;
be at peace with Him,
and goodness will return to your life.
²² Receive instruction directly from His lips,
and make His words a part of you.
²³ If you return to the Highest One,
you will be restored;
if you banish the evil from your tents,
²⁴ And consider your gold as common as earth’s dust
and Ophir’s refined gold as plentiful as stones in rock-lined streams,
²⁵ Then your true treasure will be the Highest One—
worth more than gold and silver beyond measure.
²⁶ For then, at last, you will find pleasure in the Highest One,
and you will finally be able to show Him your face.
²⁷ When you approach Him, He will listen;
you will make good on your promises to Him.
²⁸ You will pronounce something to be,
and He will make it so;
light will break out across all of your paths.
²⁹ God will humble, but you say, “Raise them up.”
He will save the downcast.
³⁰ He will even consent to deliver those who are not innocent
through the purity of your then-washed-clean hands.

¹¹ Please, Eternal One, don’t hold back
Your kind ways from me.
I need Your strong love and truth
to stand watch over me and keep me from harm.
¹² Right now I can’t see because I am surrounded by troubles;
my sins and shortcomings have caught up to me,
so I am swimming in darkness.
Like the hairs on my head, there are too many to count,
so my heart deserts me.

¹³ O Eternal One, please rescue me.
O Eternal One, hurry; I need Your help.
¹⁴ May those who are trying to destroy me
be humiliated and ashamed instead;
May those who want to ruin my reputation
be cut off and embarrassed.
¹⁵ May those who try to catch me off guard,
those who look at me and say, “Aha, we’ve trapped you,”
be caught in their own shame instead.

¹⁶ But may all who look for You
discover true joy and happiness in You;
May those who cherish how You save them
always say, “O Eternal One, You are great and are first in our hearts.”
¹⁷ Meanwhile, I am empty and need so much,
but I know the Lord is thinking of me.
You are my help; only You can save me, my True God.
Please hurry.

² Job: All the things from you sound the same.
You are all terrible as comforters!
³ Have we reached the end of your windy words,
or are you sick with something that compels you to argue with me?
⁴ If we were to trade places,
I could rattle on as you do.
I could compose eloquent speeches as you do
and shake my head smugly at you and your problems.
⁵ But I believe I would use my words to encourage you;
my lips would move only to offer you relief.

⁶ And yet, I am not you, you are not me,
and my words are of no real use:
When I speak, my pain is not relieved;
if I remain silent, it does not go away.
⁷ God has drained me utterly;
He has made those near to me desolate—killed my family and my servants.
⁸ You have shriveled me up;
my withered form stands as a witness against me;
my body, haggard and thin, testifies to my face.
⁹ In anger He hunts me down and tears at me;
in rancor His teeth grind on my flesh;
His eyes are locked on me as a foe,
eager to destroy still more of me.
¹⁰ My foes taunt me, their mouths gape in derision,
they slap my cheek in disgust, and they conspire against me.
¹¹ God has forsaken me to young thugs
and flung me into the hands of evildoers who lie in wait for me.
¹² I was living a good life—a quiet, peaceful life—
when He began to beat on me;
He throttled my neck, tore me apart,
and then propped me up
at the far end of the field, making me a target.
¹³ His archers have now gathered around me.
In cold blood He splits my belly open and spills my bile on the earth.
¹⁴ He charged like a soldier storming a stronghold
until my walls were breached, broken down, one after another.

¹⁵ Job: Well, I have sewed the sackcloth to my very skin
and buried my mighty forehead in the dirt.
¹⁶ My face, red and hot, boils over in tears;
the shadow of darkness lies heavy on my eyelids,
¹⁷ No matter that my hands are free of violence,
and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸ O earth, do not conceal my blood!
And when they seek to silence my cry, refuse a place for its burial.
¹⁹ Look! Even at this very moment, my witness is there, in heaven;
my advocate is seated on high.
²⁰ My only friends scoff at me; they persist in mocking me;
even now my eyes well up in tears to God,
²¹ Appealing to God as a mere man,
as a human being might for the sake of his friend.
²² Only a few years left now,
and I will go down the path from which I cannot return.

17 Job: My spirit has collapsed; my days have been blotted out;
the grave is prepared for me.
² There are mockers all around me;
my eyes are fixed on their unwarranted opposition of me.
³ Show me a sign! Vouch for me, God!
Who is there to give me his hand, guaranteeing his pledge?
⁴ I think no one is there because You have closed up their minds,
made them unable to see or understand;
so You will honor none of them.
⁵ You have heard, “Whoever denounces his friends for land
will watch his children go blind.”

⁶ But God has turned me into a swear word for everyone;
I have become a symbol of human darkness;
I am the face on whom one spits.
⁷ All my afflictions cloud my vision;
the members of my body are wasting away;
I am a mere shadow of what it once was.
⁸ Those of moral fiber are appalled at this;
innocent men grow indignant at the wicked.
⁹ Even still, the righteous embrace their way of life;
those with clean hands go from strong to stronger.
¹⁰ By contrast, I look to you, my friends, and I say,
“Come ahead, all of you; try your words once more.”
I still won’t expect to find a wise man among you.
¹¹ Even now my days have passed me by;
My plans lie broken at my feet;
the secret wishes of my heart grow cold.
¹² And yet my friends say, this loss of hope is for good,
turning my dark night into what appears to them as day.
In the pitch darkness, these broken plans and secret wishes speak to me.
They say, “There is light nearby.”
¹³ If I hope only to live in the land of the dead,
if I prepare for myself a bed in the darkness,
¹⁴ If I speak to my burial pit, calling it “Father,”
and to the worms in the earth, calling them “Mother” and “Sister,”
¹⁵ Then where will I find my hope?
And who will see it?
¹⁶ Will hope go with me to the place of death?
Will hope accompany me into the ground?

² Bildad: How long will you keep up the hunt for words?
Show some sense, and then we can actually converse.
³ Why is it we are like cattle to you,
dumb animals in your eyes?
⁴ You speak of how God “tears at you,” you!
You tear at yourself in your rage.
Oh, how self-centered you are!
Ought the earth be emptied of its inhabitants for your sake?
Ought the rocks roll away for your convenience?

⁵ Remember, the flame of the wicked is extinguished.
His fire no longer lends light to anything.
⁶ His tent-lamp goes dark;
his bedside lamp flickers and dies.
⁷ His long strides falter, as his own plans take him down.
⁸ His then-weakened feet lead him to a net,
And wander into its waiting mesh.
⁹ A snare clamps around his heel;
he feels it dig into him.
¹⁰ This trap was set for him beforehand:
a snare is hidden on the ground;
a net is overhead along the path.
¹¹ Terrors press in on every side
and badger his every step.
¹² His deepest fears stalk him as he staggers, craving him,
and awaiting his imminent collapse.
¹³ Bit by bit, disease eats at his skin;
bit by bit, the firstborn of death gnashes at his limbs.
¹⁴ He is torn violently from the safety of his tent
and forced to march before the king of terrors.

¹⁵ Bildad: Nothing of his remains in his tent,
and burning sulfur has been scattered on it so no one will dwell there again.
¹⁶ Death comes from both directions:
from below, his roots dry out;
from above, his branches wither.
¹⁷ On the earth, he disappears from memory;
on the outside, no one recalls his name.
¹⁸ He is pushed out of the light into darkness
and chased from the inhabited world altogether.
¹⁹ He has no children, no descendants among his people;
no one survives him or escapes from his homeland.
²⁰ His fate is unanimously viewed:
with dismay in the West,
with horror in the East.
²¹ Surely this is the way it goes with all evil people;
surely this is the lot in life for those who do not know God.

² Job: O how long! How long will you torture me and pound me with your chatter?
³ What is it now? Eight times? Nine times?
No, surely it’s ten times you have insulted me.
Ten times you’ve shamelessly acted to harm me.
⁴ Even if I have erred, my faults lie with me alone.
⁵ However, if you must exalt yourselves at my expense,
if you must proffer my own disgrace as evidence against me,
⁶ Then you ought at least to know that I have been wronged by God.
Yes, His net is closed about me.

⁷ Look! I cry out, “Violence!” but no response comes.
I shout for help, but justice eludes me.
⁸ He is a roadblock. He will not let me pass;
He has covered my roads in darkness.
⁹ He has stripped me of my honor,
torn the crown off my head.
¹⁰ He comes at me from all sides, but I attempt to leave;
He rips out my hope as if it were a tree in dry ground.
¹¹ His anger burns white-hot against me,
and He considers me His enemy.
¹² His militia arrives to raise a siege ramp against me
and to surround my dwelling.

¹³ He has driven my relatives far from me;
I am cut off from my friends.
¹⁴ My entire family has failed me;
my best friends have forgotten me.
¹⁵ Everyone in my house, including my maidservants,
treats me like an outsider;
I am a stranger to them now.
¹⁶ When I send for my servant, he does not come.
I even plead with him with my own voice.
¹⁷ My breath is strange; even my wife avoids me;
I’m loathsome to my relatives; they can’t stand to be around me.
¹⁸ Even young children taunt me,
and when I seek to rise, they mock me.
¹⁹ My closest friends can no longer bear me,
and anyone I have ever loved has turned against me.
²⁰ I am reduced to skin and bones;
I have barely escaped by the skin of my teeth.
²¹ Show me your pity, my friends, show me your pity!
For truly, I have been struck by the hand of God.
²² Why do you pursue me as God has done?
Is my emaciated body not satisfying enough for you?

²³ What I would give to have my words taken down,
to have them inscribed for posterity on a scroll.
²⁴ No! More than that!
To have them chiseled with iron filled with lead—
carved in stone for all eternity.
²⁵ Besides, I know my Redeemer lives,
and in the end He will rise and take His stand on the earth.
²⁶ And though my skin has been stripped off,
still, in my flesh, I will see God.
²⁷ I, myself, will see Him:
not some stranger, but actually me, with these eyes.
Toward this end, my deepest longings pine away within my chest.

²⁸ Job: If you ask, “How will we pursue him
since the root cause of his suffering lies in him?”
²⁹ You ought to fear the sword yourselves;
for the sword bears fury’s punishment
in order that you might realize there is, in fact, a judgment.

⁴ Surely those who trust the Eternal—
who don’t trust in proud, powerful people
Or in people who care little for reality, chasing false gods—
surely they are happy, as I have become.
⁵ You have done so many wonderful things,
had so many tender thoughts toward us, Eternal my God,
that go on and on, ever increasing.
Who can compare with You?

⁶ Sacrifices and offerings are not what You want,
but You’ve opened my ears,^[a] and now I understand.
Burnt offerings and sin offerings
are not what please You.
⁷ So I said, “See, I have come to do Your will,
as it is inscribed of me in the scroll.
⁸ I am pleased to live how You want, my God.
Your law is etched into my heart and my soul.”

⁹ I have encouraged Your people with the message of righteousness,
in Your great assembly (look and see),
I haven’t kept quiet about these things;
You know this, Eternal One.
¹⁰ I have not kept Your righteousness to myself, sealed up in the secret places of my heart;
instead, I boldly tell others how You save and how loyal You are.
I haven’t been shy to talk about Your love, nor have I been afraid to tell Your truth
before the great assembly of Your people.

22 A good reputation is preferable to riches,
and the approval of others is better than precious silver or gold.