21

1Then Job answered,

2“Listen diligently to my speech.

Let this be your consolation.

3Allow me, and I also will speak.

After I have spoken, mock on.

4As for me, is my complaint to man?

Why shouldn’t I be impatient?

5Look at me, and be astonished.

Lay your hand on your mouth.

6When I remember, I am troubled.

Horror takes hold of my flesh.

7“Why do the wicked live,

become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?

8Their child is established with them in their sight,

their offspring before their eyes.

9Their houses are safe from fear,

neither is the rod of God upon them.

10Their bulls breed without fail.

Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.

11They send out their little ones like a flock.

Their children dance.

12They sing to the tambourine and harp,

and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.

13They spend their days in prosperity.

In an instant they go down to Sheol.

14They tell God, ‘Depart from us,

for we don’t want to know about your ways.

15What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?

What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’

16Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand.

The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

17“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?

18How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind,

as chaff that the storm carries away?

19You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’

Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.

20Let his own eyes see his destruction.

Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

21For what does he care for his house after him,

when the number of his months is cut off?

22“Shall any teach God knowledge,

since he judges those who are high?

23One dies in his full strength,

being wholly at ease and quiet.

24His pails are full of milk.

The marrow of his bones is moistened.

25Another dies in bitterness of soul,

and never tastes of good.

26They lie down alike in the dust.

The worm covers them.

27“Behold, I know your thoughts,

the plans with which you would wrong me.

28For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?

Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’

29Haven’t you asked wayfaring men?

Don’t you know their evidences,

30that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity,

that they are led out to the day of wrath?

31Who will declare his way to his face?

Who will repay him what he has done?

32Yet he will be borne to the grave.

Men will keep watch over the tomb.

33The clods of the valley will be sweet to him.

All men will draw after him,

as there were innumerable before him.

34So how can you comfort me with nonsense,

because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”

22

1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

2“Can a man be profitable to God?

Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.

3Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that you are righteous?

Or does it benefit him that you make your ways perfect?

4Is it for your piety that he reproves you,

that he enters with you into judgment?

5Isn’t your wickedness great?

Neither is there any end to your iniquities.

6For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing,

and stripped the naked of their clothing.

7You haven’t given water to the weary to drink,

and you have withheld bread from the hungry.

8But as for the mighty man, he had the earth.

The honorable man, he lived in it.

9You have sent widows away empty,

and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.

10Therefore snares are around you.

Sudden fear troubles you,

11or darkness, so that you can not see,

and floods of waters cover you.

12“Isn’t God in the heights of heaven?

See the height of the stars, how high they are!

13You say, ‘What does God know?

Can he judge through the thick darkness?

14Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he doesn’t see.

He walks on the vault of the sky.’

15Will you keep the old way,

which wicked men have trodden,

16who were snatched away before their time,

whose foundation was poured out as a stream,

17who said to God, ‘Depart from us!’

and, ‘What can the Almighty do for us?’

18Yet he filled their houses with good things,

but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

19The righteous see it, and are glad.

The innocent ridicule them,

20saying, ‘Surely those who rose up against us are cut off.

The fire has consumed their remnant.’

21“Acquaint yourself with him now, and be at peace.

By it, good will come to you.

22Please receive instruction from his mouth,

and lay up his words in your heart.

23If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up,

if you put away unrighteousness far from your tents.

24Lay your treasure in the dust,

the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks.

25The Almighty will be your treasure,

and precious silver to you.

26For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty,

and will lift up your face to God.

27You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you.

You will pay your vows.

28You will also decree a thing, and it will be established to you.

Light will shine on your ways.

29When they cast down, you will say, ‘be lifted up.’

He will save the humble person.

30He will even deliver him who is not innocent.

Yes, he will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”

23

1Then Job answered,

2“Even today my complaint is rebellious.

His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.

3Oh that I knew where I might find him!

That I might come even to his seat!

4I would set my cause in order before him,

and fill my mouth with arguments.

5I would know the words which he would answer me,

and understand what he would tell me.

6Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power?

No, but he would listen to me.

7There the upright might reason with him,

so I should be delivered forever from my judge.

8“If I go east, he is not there.

If I go west, I can’t find him.

9He works to the north, but I can’t see him.

He turns south, but I can’t catch a glimpse of him.

10But he knows the way that I take.

When he has tried me, I will come out like gold.

11My foot has held fast to his steps.

I have kept his way, and not turned away.

12I haven’t gone back from the commandment of his lips.

I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.

13But he stands alone, and who can oppose him?

What his soul desires, even that he does.

14For he performs that which is appointed for me.

Many such things are with him.

15Therefore I am terrified at his presence.

When I consider, I am afraid of him.

16For God has made my heart faint.

The Almighty has terrified me.

17Because I was not cut off before the darkness,

neither did he cover the thick darkness from my face.

24

1“Why aren’t times laid up by the Almighty?

Why don’t those who know him see his days?

2There are people who remove the landmarks.

They violently take away flocks, and feed them.

3They drive away the donkey of the fatherless,

and they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.

4They turn the needy out of the way.

The poor of the earth all hide themselves.

5Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert,

they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food.

The wilderness yields them bread for their children.

6They cut their food in the field.

They glean the vineyard of the wicked.

7They lie all night naked without clothing,

and have no covering in the cold.

8They are wet with the showers of the mountains,

and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter.

9There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast,

and take a pledge of the poor,

10so that they go around naked without clothing.

Being hungry, they carry the sheaves.

11They make oil within the walls of these men.

They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.

12From out of the populous city, men groan.

The soul of the wounded cries out,

yet God doesn’t regard the folly.

13“These are of those who rebel against the light.

They don’t know its ways,

nor stay in its paths.

14The murderer rises with the light.

He kills the poor and needy.

In the night he is like a thief.

15The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight,

saying, ‘No eye will see me.’

He disguises his face.

16In the dark they dig through houses.

They shut themselves up in the daytime.

They don’t know the light.

17For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness,

for they know the terrors of the thick darkness.

18“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.

19Drought and heat consume the snow waters,

so does Sheol those who have sinned.

20The womb will forget him.

The worm will feed sweetly on him.

He will be no more remembered.

Unrighteousness will be broken as a tree.

21He devours the barren who don’t bear.

He shows no kindness to the widow.

22Yet God preserves the mighty by his power.

He rises up who has no assurance of life.

23God gives them security, and they rest in it.

His eyes are on their ways.

24They 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.

25If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar,

and make my speech worth nothing?”