Job Answers

1Then Job answered and said,

2“Truly then you are the people,

And with you wisdom will die!

3But I have a heart of wisdom as well as you;

I do not fall short of you.

And [†]who does not know such things as these?

4I am a laughingstock to [†]my friends,

The one who called on God and He answered him;

The righteous and blameless man is a laughingstock.

5[†]As for upheaval, there is only contempt by the one who acts at ease,

But it is prepared for those whose feet slip.

6The tents of the destroyers are complacent,

And those who provoke God are secure,

[†]Whom God brings into their power.

7“But now ask the beasts, and let them instruct you;

And the birds of the sky, and let them tell you.

8Or muse to the earth, and let it instruct you;

And let the fish of the sea recount it to you.

9Who among all these does not know

That the hand of Yahweh has done this,

10In whose hand is the life of every living thing,

And the breath of all the flesh of man?

11Does not the ear test words,

As the palate [†]tastes its food?

12Wisdom is with aged men,

With [†]long life is discernment.

Job Speaks of God’s Strength

13“With Him are wisdom and might;

To Him belong counsel and discernment.

14Behold, He pulls down, and it cannot be rebuilt;

He closes a man in, and it cannot be opened.

15Behold, He restrains the waters, and they dry up;

And He sends them out, and they overturn the earth.

16With Him are strength and sound wisdom;

The misled and the misleader belong to Him.

17He makes counselors walk [†]barefoot

And makes fools of judges.

18He opens the [†]bond of kings

And binds their loins with a belt.

19He makes priests walk [†]barefoot

And subverts the enduring ones.

20He removes speech from the faithful

And takes away the discerning taste of the elders.

21He pours contempt on nobles

And loosens the belt of the strong.

22He reveals mysteries from the darkness

And brings out the shadows of death into light.

23He makes the nations great, then makes them perish;

He [†]enlarges the nations, then leads them away.

24He removes the heart of wisdom from the heads of the earth’s people

And makes them wander in a pathless [†]waste.

25They grope in darkness with no light,

And He makes them wander about like a drunken man.