Job

Chapter 1

¹ In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. He was a man of complete integrity. He respected God and so he avoided doing evil things. ² Now Job had seven sons and three daughters. ³ He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, one thousand oxen, and five hundred donkeys. He also had many servants. Job was richer than anyone else who lived in the area east of the Jordan River.

⁴ Job’s sons often held feasts in their homes. Whenever any of them held a feast, he would invite all of his brothers and sisters to share the meal with him. ⁵ After all of the sons had each held a feast, Job would gather his children together. He would ask Yahweh to cleanse them from any action they might have committed during their feasting that would have made them unacceptable to him. He would get up early in the morning, kill animals, and burn them on the altar {as sacrifices}, one for each {of his children}. {For} Job {always said}, “Perhaps my children have sinned by saying something evil about God in their thoughts. {If they have, I need to ask God to forgive them.}” Job did this after each time his sons had all hosted feasts.

⁶ One day the angels came and gathered together in front of Yahweh, and Satan came too. ⁷ Yahweh asked Satan, “Where have you just come from?”

Satan replied, “I have come from the earth, where I was traveling around {to see what was happening}.”

⁸ Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you noticed Job, who worships me? I mention him because no one else on earth has such complete integrity as he does. He respects me and so he refuses to do anything evil.” ⁹ Satan replied to Yahweh, “Job only worships you because of what you have done for him. ¹⁰ You have always protected him, his family, and everything he owns. You make him succeed in whatever work he does. As a result, he has built very large herds of livestock. ¹¹ But if you attack what he owns and take it away, he will certainly curse you in front of everyone.”

¹² Yahweh replied to Satan, “All right, I permit you to take away everything that he has. But do not harm him in his own body.”

Satan {agreed and then} left Yahweh {in order to carry out his attack on Job}.

¹³ One day after that, Job’s sons and daughters were attending a feast at the home of the oldest brother. ¹⁴ {While they were doing that,} a messenger arrived at Job’s home. He told Job, “Your oxen were plowing the fields and your donkeys were grazing nearby. ¹⁵ But a group of men from the Sheba people group came and attacked us. They killed all of your servants who were working in the fields. They took away all the oxen and donkeys! I am the only one who has escaped to come and tell you what happened.”

¹⁶ While he was still talking to Job, another messenger arrived. He said to Job, “Lightning from the sky struck and killed all the sheep and all the men who were taking care of them! I am the only one who has escaped to come and tell you what happened.”

¹⁷ While he was still talking to Job, a third messenger arrived. He said to Job, “Three groups of robbers from the region of Chaldea came and attacked us. They stole all the camels and killed all the men who were taking care of them. I am the only one who has escaped to come and tell you what happened.”

¹⁸ While he was still talking to Job, a fourth messenger arrived. He said to Job: “Your sons and daughters were feasting in the home of their oldest brother. ¹⁹ Suddenly a very strong wind came from the desert and struck the house. The house collapsed on your sons and daughters and killed them all! I am the only one who has escaped to come and tell you what happened.”

²⁰ Then Job stood up and tore his robe and shaved his head {because he was very sad}. Then he lay down on the ground to worship God. ²¹ He said,

     “When I was born, I was wearing no clothes.

     When I die, I will not take any clothes with me.

     It is Yahweh who gave me everything that I possessed,

     and it is Yahweh who has taken it all away.

     I find no fault with Yahweh.

²² So in spite of all the things that had happened to him, Job did not sin by saying that what God had done was wrong.

Chapter 2

¹ On another day, the angels came again and gathered together in front of Yahweh. Satan also came again. ² Yahweh asked Satan, “Where have you come from {this time}?” Satan replied, “I have come from the earth, where I was traveling around {to see what was happening}.”

³ Yahweh asked Satan, “Have you noticed that Job continues to worship me? I mention him again because no one else on earth has such complete integrity as he does. He respects me, and so he refuses to do anything evil. He still does this even though you persuaded me to {permit you to} attack him for no reason.”

⁴ Satan replied to Yahweh, “Job still worships you because he is glad you destroyed his herds and family rather than destroying him. People will give up everything they have in order to save their own lives. ⁵ But if you harm his body, he will certainly curse you in front of everyone!”

⁶ Yahweh replied to Satan, “All right, I permit you to harm his body. But you must leave him alive.”

⁷ Satan {agreed and he} left. He went and caused Job to suffer from very painful boils all over his body. ⁸ Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped the boils on his skin. He sat down in a pile of ashes {outside the city}.

⁹ His wife said to him, “You should not still be loyal to God! You should curse God and then go ahead and die.”

¹⁰ But Job replied, “You are talking the way people talk who do not know God. We should be willing to receive whatever God sends us.” So in spite of all the things that had happened to him, Job did not sin by saying that what God had done was wrong.

¹¹ Job had some good and wise friends. One of them was Eliphaz from the town of Teman. Another was Bildad from the Shuhite people group. A third friend was Zophar from the town of Naamah. These men heard about the terrible things that had happened to Job. So they each left their homes and went together to visit Job to comfort him sincerely. ¹² But when they saw Job from a distance, they almost did not recognize him. They wailed loudly, they all tore their clothing, and they threw dust into the air that settled on their heads. {They did these things to demonstrate how sorry they were for Job.} ¹³ Then they sat on the ground with Job for seven days. {During that time} none of them said anything to him, out of respect for how greatly he was suffering.

Chapter 3

¹ At the end of those seven days, Job started speaking. He cursed the day when he was born. ² He said,

     ³ “I wish that the day of my birth had never existed!

         {I feel the same way about} the night when my mother conceived me.

     ⁴ I wish that there would only be darkness on that day {so that it would not even be a day}.

         I wish that God in heaven would not care about that day

         and so not make the sun shine on it.

     ⁵ I wish that that day were only darkness,

         with clouds blocking out the sunlight

         and many other things also making it very dark.

     ⁶ I wish that the moon and stars would not shine on the night when my mother conceived me.

         I wish that the day of my birth was not part of any month.

         Indeed, I wish that it was not a day in the year at all.

     ⁷ I mean it—I wish that no mother would ever again bear a child on that date.

         I wish that no one would ever again rejoice {over a child's birth} on that date.

     ⁸ There are magicians who know how to agitate the chaos monster. I want them to curse the day of my birth!

     ⁹ I wish that the stars that shone early in the morning of that day would never shine again.

         I wish that it would never become light on that day.

         I wish that not even the first rays of the rising sun would appear on that day.

     ¹⁰ I wish that day did not exist, because my mother gave birth to me on that day

         and because I became alive, I have now experienced all these terrible things.

     ¹¹ I wish that I had died right after my mother gave birth to me!

         I wish I had stopped breathing after being alive for only a short time!

     ¹² I wish that my mother had never held me on her lap

         and nursed me!

     ¹³ If I had died shortly after my mother gave birth to me,

         I would now be resting peacefully among all the other people who had died.

     ¹⁴ {I would be resting} with great kings and their advisers.

         They built beautiful tombs on spacious grounds {and are now resting in them}.

     ¹⁵ Or {I would be resting} with princes

         who owned great quantities of gold and silver.

     ¹⁶ I wish that I had died in my mother’s womb

         and never lived for even a moment.

         Then people would have buried me privately.

     ¹⁷ After wicked people die, they do not cause any more trouble.

         That allows the people whom they were oppressing to rest.

     ¹⁸ Those who were prisoners all rest peacefully {after they die}.

         They no longer have slave drivers ordering them around.

     ¹⁹ Everyone, whether rich or poor, goes to the realm of the dead.

         Those who were slaves no longer have to obey their masters.

     ²⁰ God should not allow those who are suffering greatly like me to continue to remain alive!

         God should not allow those who are very miserable to live!

     ²¹ They long to die, but they do not die.

         They desire to die more than people desire to find buried treasure.

     ²² {God should not give life in the first place} to people who are very happy when they finally die!

     ²³ God should not give life to people if he is going to keep them from knowing what to do

         or from understanding what is really happening to them!

     ²⁴ I am wishing that I were dead because now I cry so much that I cannot eat.

         I just keep groaning loudly.

     ²⁵ There were things that I always worried might happen to me.

         Those things have now happened!

     ²⁶ I really have no peace of mind at all.

         My troubles keep disturbing me.”

Chapter 4

¹ Then Eliphaz, Job's friend from the town of Teman, replied to what Job had said. Eliphaz said,

     ² “Will you please allow me to say something to you?

         I feel compelled to speak to you.

     ³ You yourself have given good advice to many people.

         You have encouraged people who were discouraged.

     ⁴ When people were struggling, you were able to say the right thing to help them.

         You enabled them to be brave again.

     ⁵ But now that you yourself are suffering, you have become discouraged.

         You are not facing your troubles bravely {as you have helped others to do}.

     ⁶ You should be confident because you honor God.

         You should be hopeful because you conduct yourself with integrity.

     ⁷ Think about this: God does not destroy people who are innocent!

         No, God never kills people who are doing what is right!

     ⁸ I know from experience that this is true:

         When people plan to do bad things to others,

         those bad things happen to them instead.

     ⁹ God becomes very angry with them {because of the wrong things they plan to do},

         and so God commands that they will die, and they do die.

     ¹⁰ Wicked people may boast and threaten,

         but God destroys them.

     ¹¹ Those wicked people will have nothing in the end, like lions that starve to death because God keeps them from catching any prey.

         Different relatives will have to take care of the children of those wicked people, as if they were lion cubs whose parents caught no prey and they had to separate from each other in order to search for food.

     ¹² I once heard a message that someone came

         and whispered to me.

     ¹³ One night I fell deeply asleep and had a dream that made me very perplexed.

     ¹⁴ I was so scared that I started to shake all over.

     ¹⁵ Then a spirit slid into view right in front of me!

         This caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand straight up.

     ¹⁶ The spirit stopped there, but I could not see what it really looked like.

         However, I knew that there was some being in front of me.

     At first it did not speak, but then it said,

     ¹⁷ ‘No human being can be more righteous than God.

     No person can be better than his Creator.

     ¹⁸ Consider this: God recognizes that even his own angels may not always do what is right.

         If they do not act wisely, he corrects them.

     ¹⁹ So God is even more careful to discipline human beings,

         knowing how very frail they are.

     ²⁰ {Humans are so fragile that} they can be here today and gone tomorrow.

         {And humans are so insignificant that} a person can die, never to return to earth, and no one will even notice.

     ²¹ Humans are {fragile,} like tents that collapse if someone pulls up their stakes.

         And they may live their whole lives on earth without ever learning to be wise.’”

Chapter 5

     ¹ If you ask someone to judge between you and God, no one will agree to do that for you.

         Not even an angel would have the authority or wisdom to judge your case.

     ² People who do not respect God get angry with God {instead of considering how they have sinned}.

         Naïve people resent God {when they do not get what they think they deserve}.

         {Their anger and resentment lead them to disobey God, so that} God punishes them severely and even kills them.

         So respect God and do not be naïve!

     ³ I have seen foolish people who seemed to be successful.

         But immediately I recognized that they would not prosper for long.

     ⁴ Their children are never safe.

         They always lose to their opponents in court

         because no one defends them.

     ⁵ People who do not respect God are not able to harvest the crops that they plant.

         Poor people come and claim the grain, right to the edges of the field.

         Yes, poor people see their crops and are glad to have them.

     ⁶ After all, trouble does not come out of nowhere.

     ⁷ No, people cause trouble for themselves throughout their lives.

         This is as certain as the fact that sparks shoot up from a fire.

     ⁸ If I were suffering as you are, I would ask God for help

         and trust God to help me.

     ⁹ God does great things that we cannot understand.

         We cannot even count the marvelous things that God does.

     ¹⁰ God is the one who sends rain onto the earth

         so that it waters our fields.

     ¹¹ God defends people who are humble.

         He gives widows safe places to live.

     ¹² God keeps devious people from being able

         to do what they plan.

     ¹³ When people try cleverly to make others suffer,

         God makes this cause suffering for them instead.

     When people try to trick others,

         God shows that it is a trick before it can fool the others.

     ¹⁴ God keeps wicked people

         from knowing how to fulfill their plans.

     It is as if the wicked people are always in the dark,

         even during the day,

     and they need to feel around with their hands

         to try to find where to go.

     ¹⁵ When powerful people threaten or accuse weak people,

         God rescues the weak people.

         He keeps the powerful people from harming them.

     ¹⁶ {Because they know that God will help them,}

         poor people can confidently expect that good things will happen to them.

     God proves that they are innocent

         when people accuse them falsely.

     ¹⁷ Consider this: Anyone whom God corrects is better off because of it.

         So you should be thankful that God is disciplining you.

     ¹⁸ You should be thankful because

         God allows people to suffer {in order to correct them}

         and then he restores them.

     ¹⁹ Whenever you are in trouble, God will keep rescuing you.

         God will keep bad things from happening to you.

     ²⁰ When there is little food to eat, God will not allow you to starve to death.

         When there is war, God will not allow your enemies to kill you.

     ²¹ God will protect you when people say bad things about you.

         God will protect you from things that could badly harm you.

     ²² You will not worry about things like that

         or about not having enough to eat.

         You will not be afraid that wild animals will hurt you,

     ²³ because you will be confident that those wild animals will not attack you.

         You will not have big rocks in your fields that make plowing difficult.

     ²⁴ You will know that things will go well for you in your home.

         When you check on your animals, you will see that they are all there.

     ²⁵ You will be certain that you will have many descendants.

         They will be as numerous as blades of grass.

     ²⁶ You will live a long life,

         like grain that grows to become fully ripe before it is harvested.

     ²⁷ I can assure you that my friends and I

         have thought carefully about these things.

     We know that they are true,

         so please pay careful attention to what I have said!”

         You also will realize that it is true.

Chapter 6

¹ Then Job spoke again to Eliphaz. He said,

     ² “If I could put all my troubles and misery

         on a scale and weigh them,

     ³ they would certainly be heavier than all the sand along the ocean shores.

         That is why I spoke very rashly about the day when I was born.

     ⁴ It is as if Almighty God had shot me with arrows.

         It is as if those arrows had poison on their tips and that poison had gone into my spirit.

     The things that God has done to me are like soldiers lined up to attack me.

     ⁵ Just as a wild donkey does not complain by braying when it has plenty of grass to eat,

         and an ox does not complain by bellowing when it has food to eat,

     I would not complain if you were really helping me.

     ⁶ People use salt to help them eat food that has little taste.

         People do that with the white of an egg, for example.

     I have been saying how I feel to help me deal with my situation.

     ⁷ But regarding food itself,

         I actually do not want to eat at all,

         because my troubles are making me too upset to eat.

     ⁸ I wish that God would do for me what I have asked of him:

     ⁹ I wish that God would agree to let me die!

         Certainly God is able to end my life.

     ¹⁰ If he did that, I would be comforted:

         I would know that in spite of the unrelenting pain I had suffered,

         I would still have always obeyed God's commands.

     ¹¹ How much longer can I expect to live,

         that I should try to live longer?

     ¹² I am not strong like stone,

         my body is not sturdy like bronze,

         so I will not be able to endure these troubles for a long time.

     ¹³ I am no longer able to help myself.

         My troubles are keeping me from doing that.

     ¹⁴ When a man has many troubles, his friends should be kind to him,

         even if he stops honoring Almighty God.

     ¹⁵ But you, my friends, have not helped me.

     You are like streams in the wilderness

         that travelers cannot depend on,

         because they leave their channels empty in the dry season.

     ¹⁶ These streams are full of water

         when the melting ice and snow make them overflow,

     ¹⁷ but when the dry season comes, there is no water flowing in those streams,

         and the channels dry up.

     ¹⁸ Merchant caravans turn off the road to search for water.

         {However, there is no water in those stream beds,

         so} the merchants die in the desert.

     ¹⁹ The men in those caravans searched for some water

         because they were sure that they would find some.

     ²⁰ They were very disappointed

         because they had been confident they would find water.

     They went a long way to the stream bed,

         but there was no water in it.

     ²¹ Similarly, you friends have not helped me at all!

     You have seen that terrible things have happened to me,

         and you are not helping me,

         because you are afraid that God might do similar things to you.

     ²² {After I lost all my wealth,} I did not ask any of you to give me money.

         I did not plead with any of you to spend some of your money to help me.

     ²³ I never asked any of you to rescue me from my enemies.

         No, I did not ask you to save me from people who were oppressing me.

     ²⁴ Answer me now, and then I will be quiet;

         tell me what wrong things I have done!

     ²⁵ I would be willing to listen to what you had to say, even if it were painful, as long as it was helpful.

         But though you are trying to correct me, you are not really helping me at all.

     ²⁶ I am a man who has nothing to hope for,

         but you try to correct me, and you think what I say is as useless as the wind!

     ²⁷ In fact, you are treating me as callously as if you were gambling for an orphan

         or arguing over the price of a friend you were selling into slavery!

     ²⁸ Please look at me! I will not lie while I am talking straight to you.

     ²⁹ Please stop saying that I have sinned, and stop criticizing me unfairly!

         You should realize that I have not done anything wrong.

     ³⁰ You must not think that I am lying!

         I know what is right to say and what is wrong to say.

Chapter 7

     ¹ “Life is very difficult for us on this earth!

         Like manual laborers, our days are long and hard.

     ² We are like slaves who keep wanting to be in the cool of evening.

         We are like workers who have to wait to be paid.

     ³ Like a slave, I am enduring a time when it feels useless to be alive.

         I have been experiencing many miserable nights.

     ⁴ When I go to bed I say, ‘I hope I will be able to sleep for a long time!’

         But I never really get to sleep. I am restless right through to the morning.

     ⁵ My body is covered with maggots and dirt;

         pus oozes out of my open sores.

     ⁶ I am running out of days faster than a shuttle releases yarn into a loom.

         and I have no reason to hope that my life will end well.

     ⁷ God, remember that my life will soon end.

         {I do not think that} I will ever be happy again.

     ⁸ God, you see me now,

         but {after I die,} you will not see me anymore.

         You may look for me then, but {you will not find me, because} I will not exist.

     ⁹ Just as a cloud never appears in the sky again once it fades,

         so when people die and go to the place where dead people are, they never return to earth.

     ¹⁰ They never return and live in their houses again.

     ¹¹ So I will say everything I want to say.

         I will speak because I am so upset.

         I will complain because I am so bitter.

     ¹² God, you do not need to watch what I am doing so closely!

         I am not a dangerous sea monster!

     ¹³ Sometimes I think that if I could just go to sleep, I would stop suffering;

         my pain would be less while I was sleeping.

     ¹⁴ But then you make me have terrible nightmares!

     ¹⁵ And I wish someone would kill me by choking me

         so that I would not have to stay alive {and suffer so much}.

     ¹⁶ I hate being alive {and suffering so much}!

         I do not want to live any longer!

         Stop afflicting me, because I will only be alive for a short time.

     ¹⁷ We human beings are not very important!

         You should not think that we are so important that you need to pay attention to what we do.

     ¹⁸ You do not need to check every morning to see what we are doing!

         You do not need to evaluate us at every moment!

     ¹⁹ I wish you would stop watching me

         and leave me alone for at least a little while!

     ²⁰ You watch me constantly,

         but if I sin, that certainly does not harm you!

     You treat me like a target that you are shooting at!

         You act as if I am bothering you all the time!

     ²¹ If I have done wrong things, you could just forgive me.

        

     I am going to die soon.

         When I do, then if you decide you want us to be friends, it will be too late, because I will be dead.”

Chapter 8

¹ Then Bildad, Job's friend from the Shuhite people group, responded to Job. He said,

     ² “Job, you should not continue to talk like this.

         You are saying a lot of things but they are not sensible.

     ³ God always does things fairly.

         Yes, Shaddai always does what is right.

     ⁴ Your children sinned against God.

         This is evident, because God has punished them for the evil things they did.

     ⁵ But as for you, you should pray to God. Yes, you should ask Shaddai to help you.

     ⁶ If you are genuinely good,

         then God will certainly do something good for you.

         He will give you back the abundant prosperity that good people have.

     ⁷ God would make you so wealthy later in life

         that it would seem as if you were not very prosperous before!

     ⁸ You should really consider the wise teachings of the people who lived before us.

         Yes, you should think about what our ancestors learned about life.

     ⁹ I advise you to consider the wisdom of our ancestors

         because we have only been alive for a short time

         and we know very little.

     This is because our time here on the earth is very short,

         like a shadow that appears briefly and then goes away.

     ¹⁰ But if you consider the wisdom of our ancestors, you will learn useful things.

         Indeed, you will learn very profound things.

     ¹¹ Papyrus certainly does not grow away from marshland.

         No, reeds certainly cannot grow where there is no water.

     ¹² If their water dries up while they are blossoming,

         they wither faster than plants typically do.

     ¹³ People who do not pay attention to God are like those reeds.

         Such people hope for good things, but they do not get them.

     ¹⁴ Godless people confidently expect good things to happen to them, but those things do not happen.

         Godless people trust certain other people to help them, but those others prove unreliable.

     ¹⁵ Godless people think they are secure because they are wealthy,

         but ultimately they can not rely on their wealth for security.

     When they begin to fail despite their wealth, they try to preserve their status,

         but they fail anyway.

     ¹⁶ Godless people are like plants that formerly flourished in abundant sunshine.

         Their branches once spread out over the ground.

     ¹⁷ Godless people are like plants whose roots once twisted securely around piles of stones

         and clung tightly to rocks.

     ¹⁸ But a person can still pull a plant completely out of the ground even if it is that healthy and securely rooted.

         Then it will be as if the plant was never there in the first place.

         People who do not pay attention to God will perish just as completely.

     ¹⁹ So people who do not pay attention to God will be sad in the end.

         Other people will come and take their places.

     ²⁰ So I tell you, Job, that God will help you if you do what is right.

         But God will not help you if you do what is wrong.

     ²¹ God can still make you happy,

         yes, very happy.

     ²² {When God blesses you,} everyone who opposed you will be very ashamed.

         God will completely destroy wicked people.”

Chapter 9

¹ Then Job replied {to Bildad},

     ² “I certainly know that what you have said is true.

         But no one can prove to God that he has done the right thing

         {and that God should not punish him}.

     ³ If someone wanted to argue with God about that,

         God would ask him many questions

         and that person would not be able to answer any of them!

     ⁴ God thinks very deeply and he is very powerful.

         No one who has tried to argue against him has ever been able to win.

     ⁵ God moves mountains {in earthquakes} without anyone knowing in advance what he is going to do.

         God knocks down mountains when he is angry.

     ⁶ God causes earthquakes far below the surface of the earth

         that shake the ground and make it move.

     ⁷ On some days, God makes it so cloudy that people can not see the sun in the sky.

         On some nights, God makes it so cloudy that people can not see the stars shining.

     ⁸ God created the sky all by himself.

         God defeated the forces of chaos {so that he could make an orderly universe}.

     ⁹ God arranged the stars in the sky to make constellations such as the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades.

         God arranged stars into many other constellations as well.

     ¹⁰ God does amazing things that people can not understand.

         God does more marvelous things than people are able to count.

     ¹¹ If God passed by where I was, I would not be able to see him.

         Yes, he might be going by, but I would not notice him.

     ¹² If God wants to take something away, no one can stop him from doing that.

         No one can challenge him to defend what he is doing.

     ¹³ God would continue to be angry {even if someone tried to calm him down}.

         {No one can oppose him;} he {even} defeated the forces of Rahab, the great sea monster.

     ¹⁴ So I could hardly think of the right words to say

         in order to argue a case against God!

     ¹⁵ Even if I were innocent, I would not be able to argue a case against him.

         All I could do would be to ask God, as my judge, to be merciful to me.

     ¹⁶ Even if he agreed to argue my case with me,

         I would not believe that he was genuinely considering my arguments.

     ¹⁷ He keeps causing troubles that batter me.

         He hurts me many times for no good reason.

     ¹⁸ He causes me to suffer all the time.

         It is as if he will not even let me get my breath again {before he causes the next disaster}.

     ¹⁹ If I made a case against him and the winner would be the one who was stronger,

         he is far stronger than I am.

     If the winner would be the one who was right,

         no one could make him obey what a judge decided.

     ²⁰ Even though I was innocent, he would find grounds in what I said to punish me.

         Even though I had not done anything wrong, he would still decide, based on what I said, that I was guilty.

     ²¹ I have not done anything wrong, {but that does not matter anymore because} I do not care what happens to me.

         I do not care whether I live or die.

     ²² God punishes everyone the same way.

         As I have been saying, God destroys everyone whether they have done wrong or not.

     ²³ When people experience disaster and it causes them to die suddenly,

         God laughs when he sees them suffer, even if they are innocent.

     ²⁴ God has allowed wicked people to control what happens to everyone else.

         It is as though God has caused judges not to be able to judge fairly.

     If it is not God who has done that,

         who, then, has done it?

     ²⁵ I am approaching the end of my life more quickly than a messenger runs to bring news.

         it is as if the days of my life are running away from me.

         Good things do not happen to me.

     ²⁶ My life is going by very rapidly,

         as fast as a sailing boat made from reeds,

         as fast as an eagle swooping down to seize an animal.

     ²⁷ If I decide that I will just forget what I am complaining about,

         stop looking sad, and try to be cheerful,

     ²⁸ I still become afraid again

         because I know that God does not consider me innocent

         and so I think that he will punish me.

     ²⁹ He will condemn me anyway,

         so why should I keep trying in vain to defend myself?

     ³⁰ If I washed my body with pure water from melted snow

         and cleansed my hands with strong soap

         {to show how innocent I am},

     ³¹ God would just throw me into a filthy pit {to show how guilty he considers me to be}.

         My body would become so dirty that it would be as if my own clothes did not want to be on it!

     ³² God is not a human, as I am,

         so I could not refute him to prove that I am innocent

         if we went together to have a trial in a courtroom.

     ³³ There is no one to mediate,

         no one who has authority over both of us.

     ³⁴ There is no one who could keep God from causing me to suffer,

         who could keep God from doing terrifying things that frighten me.

     ³⁵ {If someone could protect me and judge between us,}

         I would declare that I am innocent without being afraid of God.

         But I can not do that now.

Chapter 10

     ¹ I am tired of living,

         so I will freely express everything I want to complain about {without worrying about what God will do to me}.

         Yes, I will say exactly how unhappy I am.

     ² I will say to God, “If you are going to punish me,

         you should tell me what I have done wrong!”

     ³ You seem to think that it is all right to harm me

         and to abandon me, whom you created.

     But at the same time, you seem pleased to allow

         wicked people to do the things that they plan to do!

     ⁴ Certainly you know and understand more than what people can see with their eyes! {So you should understand my true motives and know that I am innocent.}

     ⁵ You do not live for only a short time as people do!

     ⁶ So you do not need to act as if you would run out of time

         if you did not discover all of my sins right away!

     ⁷ {You do not need to work hard to discover any sins that I may have committed,

         because} you know that I am not guilty.

         And there is no one who could help me get away from you {if you decided you should punish me}.

    

     ⁸ You personally created every single part of me.

         So it is not right for you to destroy someone whom you created yourself.

     ⁹ Please recall how you made me! You molded me the way people mold objects out of clay.

         If you destroy me, I will crumble into dust {and you will lose your marvelous creative work}.

     ¹⁰ You made me through a careful process,

         the way people carefully make cheese out of milk.

     ¹¹ You attached my bones together with tendons,

         and then you covered them with flesh inside my skin.

     ¹² You are the one who made me alive.

         {It seemed that} you were faithfully taking care of me.

         {It seemed that} you were protecting me.

     ¹³ But you kept secret what you were planning to do to me.

         I am certain that you were planning to do these things to me!

     ¹⁴ You were watching me to see if I would sin

         so that you could punish me for sinning.

     ¹⁵ If I am a wicked man,

         then I hope that terrible things will happen to me.

     But even if I am a good man,

         I must still act ashamed

         because God is punishing me as if I had sinned.

     ¹⁶ If I did act like the good man that I am,

         you would {conclude that you should punish me further

     and you would} hunt for me the way a lion hunts for some animal to kill.

         {When you caught me,} you would do even more things to harm me greatly.

     ¹⁷ You would claim that I had committed even more sins.

         You would become even more angry with me.

         You would keep punishing me in new ways.

     ¹⁸ God, you should not have allowed my mother to give birth to me!

         I wish that I had died at birth!

         Yes, I wish that my parents had never shown me to anyone.

     ¹⁹ I wish that I had never even existed!

         I wish that I had died at birth so that people had buried me right away.

     ²⁰ I am not going to live very much longer!

         So please leave me alone and let me have a little peace.

     ²¹ {Let me have some peace now because}

         soon I will go to the place from which I will never return.

     In that place {where dead people go} it is always gloomy.

         Yes, it is very dark.

     ²² Yes, in that place it is very dark, the way it is in deep shadow.

         Things are very confused there.

     Even the small light that is there

         is like darkness.’”

Chapter 11

¹ Then Zophar, the friend from the region of Naamah, said this to Job:

     ² “Should no one answer all that you have said?

         Just because you talk a lot, that fact should not persuade us to declare that you are innocent.

     ³ Job, should your babbling really cause us to be silent?

         When you make fun of what we think, certainly there should be someone to rebuke you and cause you to be ashamed!

     ⁴ You say, ‘What I say is true;

         God knows that I am innocent.’

     ⁵ But I wish that God would talk

         and say something to answer you!

     ⁶ God knows everything about everything,

         so I wish that he would tell you the secrets that he knows because he is wise.

     It would be good if you realized that God is punishing you less than you deserve!

     ⁷ Tell me, will you ever be able to find out the things about God that are very difficult to understand?

         Will you be able to find out everything that there is to know about Almighty God?

     ⁸ What there is to know about God is greater than the distance from earth to heaven;

         so there is no way that you can understand it all.

     It is greater than the distance from here to the place of the dead;

         so it is impossible for you to know it all.

     ⁹ What there is to know about God is wider than the earth

         and wider than the ocean.

     ¹⁰ If God comes to you and puts you in prison and then brings you to a trial,

         who can stop him?

     ¹¹ He knows which people are worthless;

         and when he sees people doing wicked things, he certainly does not ignore them.

     ¹² Stupid people like you will start to become wise

         when wild donkeys start giving birth to people.

     ¹³ Job, repent and make your heart humble;

         reach out your hands toward God and plead with him.

     ¹⁴ If you have done evil things, stop doing them;

         and do not allow any people in your house to do wicked deeds.

     ¹⁵ If you do that, surely you will be able to carry your head high, because you will not be ashamed;

         you will be strong and not afraid of anything.

     ¹⁶ You will forget all your troubles;

         they will be like the water that has all flowed away and dried up.

     ¹⁷ Your troubles will be ended, like the darkness ends at the dawn;

         it will be as though the sun were shining brightly on you, like it shines at noon.

     ¹⁸ You will feel safe, because you will be confident that good things will happen to you;

         God will protect you and allow you to rest safely each night.

     ¹⁹ You will lie down to sleep, and no one will make you afraid.

         And many people will come and request you to be kind to them.

     ²⁰ But wicked people will not be able to understand why bad things are happening to them;

         they will not have any way to escape from their troubles.

         The only thing that they will want to do is to die.”

Chapter 12

¹ Then Job said to his three friends,

     ² “There is no doubt that you are the people to whom everyone should listen,

         and that when you die, there will be no more wise people alive.

     ³ But I have as much good sense as you do;

         I am no less wise than you are.

         Certainly everyone knows all that you have said.

     ⁴ My friends all laugh at me now.

         Previously I habitually requested God to help me, and he always answered me.

     I am righteous, and I honor God, but now everyone laughs at me.

     ⁵ It is easy for people like you, who have no troubles, to laugh at people like me;

         you make us who are already suffering to have even more troubles.

     ⁶ Meanwhile, bandits live peacefully,

         and no one threatens those who cause God to become angry;

         the god they worship is their own strength.

     ⁷ But ask the wild animals what they know about God;

         if they could speak they would teach you.

     If you could ask the birds,

         they would tell you.

     ⁸ If you could ask the creatures that crawl on the ground, or the fish in the sea,

         they would tell you about God.

     ⁹ All of them certainly know that it is Yahweh who has done this.

     ¹⁰ He directs the lives of all living creatures;

         he gives breath to all us humans to enable us to live.

     ¹¹ When we hear what people like you say,

         we think carefully about what they say to determine what is good and what is bad,

         like we taste food to know what is good and what is bad.

     ¹² Old people are usually very wise;

         because they have lived a long time, they understand much.

     ¹³ And God is wise and very powerful;

         he has good sense and understands everything.

     ¹⁴ If he tears something down, no one can rebuild it;

         if he puts someone in prison, no one can open the door to let that person to escape.

     ¹⁵ When he prevents rain from falling, everything dries up.

         When he causes a lot of rain to fall, the result is that there are floods.

     ¹⁶ He is the one who is truly strong and wise;

         he rules over those who deceive others and those whom they deceive.

     ¹⁷ He sometimes causes the king’s officials to lose their wisdom and grieve because of it’

         and he causes judges to become foolish.

     ¹⁸ He takes from kings the ornaments that they wear

         and puts loincloths around their waists, causing them to become slaves.

     ¹⁹ He also makes priests grieve,

         and he takes power away from those who rule others.

     ²⁰ He sometimes causes those whom others trust to be unable to speak,

         and he causes old men to no longer have good sense.

     ²¹ He causes people to despise those who rule,

         and he causes those who are powerful to become weak.

     ²² He shows to us things that were secret,

         even things that were in the world of the dead.

     ²³ He causes some nations to become very great,

         and later he destroys them;

     he causes the territory of some nations to become much larger,

         and later he brings others to defeat them and take them prisoner.

     ²⁴ He causes some rulers to become foolish,

         and then he causes them to wander around, lost, as if they were in the wilderness with no way out.

     ²⁵ It is as if they were feeling around in the darkness, without any light;

         as if they were drunk, not knowing what they should do.”

Chapter 13

     ¹ “I have seen everything that you have seen,

         and I have heard and understood all that you have said.

     ² What you know, I also know;

         I do not know less than you.

     ³ But I would like to speak with Almighty God, not with you;

         I would like to argue with him and show him that I am innocent.

     ⁴ As for you, you tell lies and do not allow people to know unpleasant truth,

         like someone who covers up the bad surface of a wall with whitewash.

     You are all like doctors who sell people useless medicine.

     ⁵ I wish that you would be silent;

         that would be wiser than anything you have said to me.

     ⁶ Listen to what I will say to you now;

         listen while I am saying what is true about myself.

     ⁷ You are telling lies to help God;

         you are saying what is false in order to help him!

     ⁸ You would really like to be kind to him by defending what he does, would you not?

         It is as if you were trying to prove in a court that he is innocent!

     ⁹ But if he, sitting as the judge, looked closely at you, he would find that what you are doing for him is bad!

         You have deceived other people, but do not think that you can lie about him in court and say that you are defending him!

     ¹⁰ If you say clever things to persuade God to take your side,

         he will surely rebuke you.

     ¹¹ He will certainly bring the full force of his power against you;

         you will become very afraid of him.

     ¹² What you have said—the things that you think are so wise—are as useless as ashes;

         what you say to defend how you think is no better than clay that quickly crumbles.

     ¹³ So be quiet and allow me to speak;

         after that, it will not matter what happens to me.

     ¹⁴ I am ready to risk my life;

         I am even willing to risk that God will execute me for what I say.

     ¹⁵ If he kills me, then I will not have anyone else whom I can confidently expect to help me,

         but I am going to defend my behavior in his presence anyway.

     ¹⁶ No wicked person would dare to stand in the presence of God,

     but because I say that I have not done things that are wrong,

         perhaps, if I can prove that to God, he will declare me innocent.”

     ¹⁷ “God, listen very carefully to what I say; pay attention to me.

     ¹⁸ I am ready to argue that I am innocent,

         and I know that you also will declare that I am not guilty.

     ¹⁹ I certainly do not think that you or anyone else will say that what I say is false;

         if you did so, then I would speak no more, and I would die.

     ²⁰ I am requesting you to do two things for me;

         if you do them, I will not try to hide from you.

     ²¹ The first thing that I request is that you stop punishing me,

         and the second thing that I request is that you stop terrifying me.

     ²² Speak first, and then I will reply;

         or allow me to speak first, and then you reply.

     ²³ What have I done that is wrong? What sins have I committed?

         Show me how I have disobeyed you.

     ²⁴ Why do you refuse to be friendly to me?

         Why do you act toward me as though I were your enemy?

     ²⁵ I am as insignificant as a leaf that the wind blows.

         Why are you trying to make me afraid ?

     Why are you making me suffer?

         After all, I am as useless as a bit of dry chaff!

     ²⁶ It seems that you are writing things to accuse me of having sinned,

         and that you are writing down even the bad things I did when I was young.

     ²⁷ It is as though you have put my feet in stocks

         and that you were watching me wherever I walk;

         it is as though you were following my footprints to see where I have gone.

     ²⁸ Because of this, my body is falling apart like rotten wood,

         like a piece of cloth that the larvae of moths are eating.

Chapter 14

     ¹ We humans are very frail. We are born, and

         we live only a short time; we experience much trouble.

     ² We disappear quickly, like flowers that grow from the ground quickly and then wither and die.

         We are like shadows that disappear when the sun stops shining.

     ³ Yahweh, why do you keep watching me to see if I am doing something that is wrong ?

         Do you want to take me to court to judge me?

     ⁴ No one can bring something acceptable to God out of something that is not acceptable to him.

     ⁵ You have decided how long our lives will be.

         You have decided how many months we will live,

         and we cannot live longer than the time that you have decided.

     ⁶ So please stop examining us, and allow us to be alone

         so that we might enjoy our life of hard labor, if a hired worker can possibly do so.

     ⁷ If we cut a tree down,

         sometimes we hope that it will sprout again and grow new branches.

     ⁸ Its roots in the ground may be very old,

         and its stump may decay,

     ⁹ but if some water falls on it,

         it may bud and send up shoots like a young plant.

     ¹⁰ But when we people lose all our strength and die,

         we stop breathing, and then we are gone forever.

     ¹¹ Just as water evaporates from a lake,

         or as a riverbed dries up,

     ¹² people lie down and die and do not get up again.

     Until the heavens do not exist any longer;

         people who die do not wake up,

         and no one can wake them up.

     ¹³ Yahweh, I wish that you would put me safely in the place of the dead and forget about me, so that I do not suffer any more

         until you are no longer angry with me.

     I wish that you would decide how much time I would spend there,

         and then remember that I am there.

     ¹⁴ When we humans die, we will certainly not live again.

         If I knew that we would live again, I would wait patiently

         for you to release me from my sufferings.

     ¹⁵ You would call me, and I would answer.

         You would be eager to see me, one of the creatures that you had made.

     ¹⁶ You would carefully see where I went,

         and you would not be interested in seeing whether I sinned or not.

     ¹⁷ The record of my sins would be sealed in a small bag,

         and you would cover them.

     ¹⁸ But, just as mountains crumble and rocks fall down from a cliff,

     ¹⁹ and just as water slowly wears away the stones, and just as floods wash away soil,

         you eventually destroy us; you do not allow us to continue to hope that we will keep on living.

     ²⁰ You always defeat us, and then we die.

         You cause our faces to look ugly after we die,

         and you send us away.

     ²¹ When we die, we do not know if our sons will grow up and do things that will cause other people to honor them.

         Or if they become disgraced, we do not know that either.

     ²² We will feel our own pain; we will not feel anything else;

         we will be sorry for ourselves, not for anyone else.”

Chapter 15

¹ Then Eliphaz replied to Job:

     ² “If you were truly wise, you would not have replied to us by claiming that you know a lot;

         what you are saying is just a lot of hot air.

     ³ You should not be saying things that do not benefit anyone;

         you should not say things that do no one any good.

     ⁴ You are teaching others not to respect God,

         and you are keeping them from honoring him.

     ⁵ You are wicked, and that is why you say what you do;

         you talk like deceptive people talk.

     ⁶ Everything that you say shows that God should punish you;

         it is not necessary for me to prove that.

     ⁷ Tell me, why do you think you know so much? You do not think that you were the first person who was ever born, do you?

         You do not think that you were born before God created the mountains, do you?

     ⁸ Were you listening when God made all his plans?

         Do you think that you are the only person who is wise?

     ⁹ What do you know that we others do not know?

         You do not understand anything that is not also clear to us.

     ¹⁰ My friends and I are also wise;

         we acquired wisdom from old gray-haired people,

         from people who were born before your father was.

     ¹¹ God wants to comfort you

     and to speak gently to you;

         that should be enough for you, but it is not enough, is it?

     ¹² Why do you allow yourself to be excited by your emotions?

         Why do your eyes flash with anger?

     ¹³ You are angry with God,

         and so you say harsh things against him.

     ¹⁴ How can any person, including you, be sinless?

         How can anyone on the earth be completely righteous?

     ¹⁵ God does not even trust his angels;

         he does not consider the heavens to be completely pure.

     ¹⁶ So he certainly does not trust disgusting people,

         those who commit evil deeds as often as they drink water.

     ¹⁷ Job, listen to what I tell you.

         I will declare to you what I know,

     ¹⁸ things that wise men have told me,

         truths that their ancestors did not keep hidden.

     ¹⁹ (God gave this land to those ancestors who were truly wise;

         no one from another country came and caused them to think wrongly about God.)

     ²⁰ Wicked people suffer with great pain all the time that they are alive;

         that is what happens to those who oppress others.

     ²¹ They constantly hear sounds that terrify them;

         while they are prospering, robbers attack them.

     ²² Wicked people do not really think that they will escape from darkness;

         they are sure that someone is waiting to kill them with a sword.

     ²³ They wander around, searching for food, saying ‘Where can I find some?’

         They know that they will soon experience disasters.

     ²⁴ Because they are afraid of those things happening to them, they worry

         that these things will attack them as a king’s army waits to attack its enemies and causes them to suffer.

     ²⁵ These things happen to them because they shook their fists against Almighty God

         and thought that they were strong enough to defeat him.

     ²⁶ They stubbornly rush to attack God

         thinking that a strong shield will protect them.

     ²⁷ But they are so fat that they are unable to fight.

     ²⁸ They have lived in cities that have been abandoned,

         cities which God declared would become a heap of ruins.

     ²⁹ But they will not remain rich very long;

         Others will take everything that they own,

         and even their shadows will disappear from the earth.

     ³⁰ They will not escape from the darkness of death;

         they will be like trees whose branches burn up.

         When God gives the command, they will die.

     ³¹ If they are very foolish, with the result that they trust in things that are really worthless,

         then things that are worthless will be all that they get.

     ³² While they are still young, they will disappear;

         they will be like branches that wither and never become green again.

     ³³ They will be like vines whose grapes fall off before they are ripe,

         like olive trees whose blossoms fall off before they produce any fruit.

     ³⁴ Groups of wicked people will not have any descendants,

         and fires will completely burn up the homes of those who took money from bribes.

     ³⁵ They plan to cause trouble and to do evil things,

         and in their hearts they are always preparing to deceive people.”

Chapter 16

¹ Job replied to Eliphaz and the others,

     ² “I have heard things like that before;

         all of you, instead of helping me, are only causing me to feel more miserable.

     ³ Will your speeches, which are only wind, never end?

         Eliphaz, what bothers you that makes you continue replying like this to me?

     ⁴ If it were you three and not I who were suffering,

         I could, in your place, say the things that you are saying.

     I could make great speeches to criticize you,

         and I could shake my head at you to ridicule you.

     ⁵ Then you would see whether my words encouraged you or not;

         you would see whether they made you feel your pain less.

     ⁶ But now, if I talk, my pain does not decrease,

         and if I am silent, my pain still certainly does not go away.

     ⁷ God, you have now taken away all my strength;

         you have destroyed all my family.

     ⁸ You have shriveled me up,

         and people think that shows me to be a sinner.

     They see that I am only skin and bones,

         and they think that proves that I am guilty.

     ⁹ Because God is very angry with me and hates me,

         it is as though he were a wild animal that tore me apart with his teeth

         because he was my enemy.

     ¹⁰ People gape at me with their mouths open to sneer at me;

         they have struck me on the face to ridicule me,

         and they crowd around me to threaten me.

     ¹¹ It is as though God has handed me over to people who refuse to honor him

         and has put me into the power of the wicked.

     ¹² Previously, I was living peacefully,

         but he crushed me;

     it is as though he grabbed my neck and smashed me to pieces;

         it is as though he set me up like a target.

     ¹³ It is as though I were a target, and that people were surrounding me and shooting arrows at me.

     God’s arrows pierce my kidneys

         and cause the bile from my liver to spill onto the ground;

         God does not pity me at all.

     ¹⁴ It is as though I were a wall that he is breaking through time after time;

         he rushes at me like a soldier who is attacking his enemy.

     ¹⁵ Because I am mourning, I wear pieces of rough cloth that I have sewed together,

         and I sit here in the dirt, very depressed.

     ¹⁶ My face is red because I have cried very much,

         and there are dark circles around my eyes.

     ¹⁷ All this has happened to me even though I have not acted violently toward anyone,

         and even though I always pray sincerely to God.

     ¹⁸ When I die, I want the ground to act as though I had been murdered; I want it to cry out against those who killed me,

         and I do not want anyone to stop me while I am demanding that God act justly toward me.

     ¹⁹ But even now, I know that there is someone in heaven who will testify for me,

         and he will say that what I have done is right.

     ²⁰ My three friends scorn me,

         but my eyes are full of tears while I cry out to God.

     ²¹ I pray that the one who knows what I have done would come to plead with God for me

         as a person pleads for his friend.

     ²² I say this because within a few years I will die;

         I will walk along the road to a place from which I will never return.”

Chapter 17

     ¹ “My time to live is almost ended; I have no strength left;

         those who have dug my grave are waiting for me.

     ² Those who are around me are making fun of me;

         I must always see them mocking me.”

     ³ “God, it is as though I were in prison;

     please pay the money in order that I may be released,

         because there is certainly no one else who will help me.

     ⁴ You have prevented my friends from understanding what is true about me,

         but you will not allow them to triumph over me, saying that I have done wrong things.

     ⁵ Our ancestors said, ‘It often happens that when someone betrays his friends in order to get some of their property,

         it is that person’s children who will be punished for it;’

     so I desire that will be true of these friends of mine who are lying about me.

     ⁶ But now people use that saying of our ancestors when they talk about me;

         they spit to insult me.

     ⁷ My eyes have become dim because I am very sad,

         and my arms and legs are as thin as shadows.

     ⁸ People who are truly righteous will be shocked when they see what has happened to me;

         they will be angry at those who refuse to honor God.

     ⁹ Those who are truly righteous will continue to do what is right,

         and those who live righteously will continue to become stronger.

     ¹⁰ But all you friends of mine,

         I do not find even one among you who is wise.

     ¹¹ My time to live is almost ended; I have not been able to do the things that I planned to do.

         As for the things I have most desired, there is no hope of them happening.

     ¹² My friends do not know when it is night and when it is day;

         when it is night, they claim that it is daylight;

         when it is becoming dark, they claim that it is getting light.

     ¹³ I know that my home will be the place where dead people are,

         where I will sleep in the darkness.

     ¹⁴ I can say to the grave, ‘Where I am buried, that place will be like a father to me.’

         I can say to the maggots, ‘You will be like a mother or younger sisters to me because that is where I will always be.’

     ¹⁵ There is certainly no more hope left for me.

         No one expects that I will have any more happiness.

     ¹⁶ After I descend to the place where the dead are, I will not be able to expect anything good there.

         I and the things I hope for will go down together into the soil.”

Chapter 18

¹ Then Bildad replied again:

     ² “Please stop talking!

         If you would stop talking and listen, we could tell you something.

     ³ Why do you think that we are as stupid as cattle and as unrighteous?

     ⁴ By being very angry, you are only hurting yourself.

         Do you think that everyone on the earth must leave to prove that you are right,

         or do you think that God must move the rocks in the mountains to please you?

     ⁵ What will happen is that the lives of wicked people like you end

         as quickly as we can put out a light or extinguish the flame of a fire.

     ⁶ When the lamps above them in their tents are extinguished,

         there will be no light in those tents.

     ⁷ While they are alive, they walk confidently,

         but later it will be as though they stumbled and fell,

     because they themselves do not pay attention to the advice that they give to others.

     ⁸ It will be as though they had walked into their own net

         or had fallen into a pit that they themselves dug.

     ⁹ It will be as though a trap had grabbed their heels and held them fast,

     ¹⁰ as though the end of a rope that was hidden on the ground

         had sprung up and seized them when they walked on it.

     ¹¹ Everywhere they go, there will be things that cause them to be terrified;

         it will be as though those things were pursuing them and biting at their heels.

     ¹² They will become hungry, with the result that they will be strong no longer.

         They will continually experience disasters.

     ¹³ Diseases will spread all over their skin;

         diseases will cause their bodies to decay.

     ¹⁴ When they die, they will be snatched away from their tents

         and brought to the one who rules over the dead.

     ¹⁵ Then other people will live in their tents,

         but only after they sprinkle sulfur on those tents to get rid of the disease!

     ¹⁶ Because they will die and leave no descendants,

         they will be like trees whose roots have dried up and whose branches have all withered.

     ¹⁷ No one on the earth will remember them anymore;

         no one on any street will even remember their names.

     ¹⁸ They will have to leave the earth, where there is light,

         and rush into the place where it is dark.

     ¹⁹ They will have no children or grandchildren,

         no descendants where they will have previously lived.

     ²⁰ People from the east to the west who hear about what happened to them, everyone,

         will be shocked and horrified.

     ²¹ This is what happens to unrighteous people like you,

         people who do not know God.”

Chapter 19

¹ Then Job replied:

     ² “How long will you three torment me

         and discourage me by calling me wicked?

     ³ You have insulted me many times;

         are you not ashamed for saying these things to me?

     ⁴ Even if it were true that I had done wrong,

         I have not injured you!

     ⁵ If you truly think that you are better than I am,

         and if you argue that I must be guilty because I am suffering,

     ⁶ you should realize that it is God who has caused me to suffer.

         It is as though he has a net and that he has caught me in it.

     ⁷ I cry out, ‘People are murdering me!’,

         but no one answers me.

     I call out loudly, but there is no one, not even God, who acts fairly toward me.

     ⁸ It is as though God has blocked my road,

         and I cannot go anywhere;

         it is as though he has forced me to try to find the road in the darkness.

     ⁹ He has taken away my good reputation;

         it is as though he has removed a crown from my head.

     ¹⁰ He batters me from every side, and I will soon die.

         I no longer expect him to do anything good for me.

     ¹¹ He attacks me because he is very angry at me;

         he considers me to be his enemy.

     ¹² It is as though he were sending his army to attack me;

         they surround my tent

         and get ready to attack me.

     ¹³ God has caused my brothers to abandon me,

         and for all those who know me to act like strangers to me.

     ¹⁴ All my relatives and good friends have left me.

     ¹⁵ The people who were guests in my house have forgotten me,

         and my female servants consider that I am a foreigner whom they do not know.

     ¹⁶ When I summon my servants, they do not answer;

         When I plead with them to come to help me, they do not come.

     ¹⁷ My breath smells very bad to my wife so she stays away from me,

         and my brothers detest me.

     ¹⁸ Even young children despise me;

         when I stand up to talk to them, they laugh at me.

     ¹⁹ My dearest friends detest me,

         and those whom I love very much have turned against me.

     ²⁰ My body is only skin and bones;

         I am barely alive.

     ²¹ I plead with you, my three friends, pity me

         because God has struck me very hard.

     ²² Why do you cause me to suffer, also? Do you think you are God?

         Why do you never get enough of accusing me of doing wrong?

     ²³ I wish that someone would take these words of mine

         and write them permanently in a book in order that people can read them.

     ²⁴ Or else, I wish that someone would carve my words on a rock with a chisel

         in order that they would last forever.

     ²⁵ But I know that the one who vindicates me in court is alive,

         and that some day he will stand here on the earth and make the final decision about whether I deserve to be punished.

     ²⁶ And even after diseases have destroyed my body,

         still, in my body I will see God.

     ²⁷ I will see him myself;

         I will see him with my own eyes!

         My emotions overwhelm me as I think about that!

     ²⁸ If you three men say, ‘This is how we will cause him to suffer!’

         and you say, ‘He is the one who has caused his own troubles,’

     ²⁹ you should fear that God will punish you;

     he punishes those like you with whom he is angry;

         and when that happens, you will know that there is someone who judges people.”

Chapter 20

¹ Then Zophar replied again:

     ² “I am very troubled about what you have said,

         so I want to reply very quickly.

     ³ By saying these things you have insulted me,

         but something within my understanding suggests to me how I may reply to you.

     ⁴ Do you not know that from long ago,

         ever since God first put people on the earth,

     ⁵ that wicked people like you do not continue to rejoice for a long time,

         and that people who refuse to honor God are happy only for a moment?

     ⁶ Although their reputations reach up to the sky,

         and their fame goes up as high as the clouds,

     ⁷ they will disappear forever, like their own excrement,

         and those who knew them will ask, ‘Where did they go?’

     ⁸ They will disappear as a dream does,

         and they will exist no more.

     They will vanish like dreams that people have during the night.

     ⁹ Those people who now see those wicked people will never see them again;

         even the people who lived with them will not see them anymore.

     ¹⁰ Their children will be forced to return the valuable things that they stole from poor people.

     ¹¹ The bodies of the wicked were once young and strong,

         but they will die and be buried in the ground.

     ¹² Although doing wicked things was like having sweet food in their mouths

         that they wanted to continue tasting,

     ¹³ and although they did not want to stop doing those things,

     ¹⁴ those evil things will someday become like poison that they swallow,

         or like the poison from snakes.

     ¹⁵ Wicked people pile up wealth for themselves, but they do not keep it forever,

         just like people do not keep down the food that they vomit.

     God takes their wealth from them.

     ¹⁶ Doing evil deeds is like swallowing snake poison;

         doing evil will kill the wicked as the bite of a poisonous snake will kill people.

     ¹⁷ The wicked will not remain alive to see the abundant blessings from God,

         which are like a stream that flows.

     ¹⁸ They will be forced to give back the things that they stole from the poor;

         they will not be able to continue to enjoy those things.

     They will not remain happy because of what they got from their business

     ¹⁹ because they oppressed poor people and refused to help them,

         and they took other people’s houses by cheating them.

     ²⁰ They were always greedy and never satisfied.

         So when they ate, they ate so much that they never saved anything that they enjoyed.

     ²¹ When they finished eating their food, there was never anything left over because they had greedily eaten it all;

         but now their prosperity will end.

     ²² When they are still very wealthy,

         they will suddenly experience trouble.

         The full power of everyone who lives in misery will crush them.

     ²³ When the wicked people are filling their stomachs,

         God will show that he is very angry with them, and he will punish them;

         he will bring down suffering on them like the rain that falls on the ground.

     ²⁴ They will try to escape from people who will attack them with iron weapons,

         but arrows with bronze points will pierce them.

     ²⁵ The arrows will go completely through their bodies and stick out of their backs;

         the shiny points of the arrows will have blood dripping from them,

         and those wicked people will be terrified.

     ²⁶ Their valuable possessions will all be destroyed;

         a fire started by God, not by humans, will burn them up

         and will destroy the things that are left in their tents.

     ²⁷ The angels in heaven will reveal the sins that those wicked people have committed,

         and people on earth will stand up and testify against them.

     ²⁸ On the day when God punishes people,

         all the possessions in the wicked people’s houses will be carried away, as if a flood had come.

     ²⁹ That is what will happen to wicked people like you;

         that is what God has decreed for them.”

Chapter 21

¹ Then Job replied in this way:

     ² “Listen to what I say, all of you;

         that is the only thing that you can do that will comfort me.

     ³ Be patient with me, and allow me to speak.

         Then, after I am finished speaking, you can continue to make fun of me.

     ⁴ It is certainly not people against whom I am complaining, but God!

         And it is certainly right for me to be impatient!

     ⁵ Look at me! Does what you see not cause you to be appalled

         and to put your hands over your mouths and say no more?

     ⁶ When I think about what has happened to me,

         I am frightened and my entire body shakes.

     ⁷ But allow me to ask this: ‘Why do wicked people continue to live,

         and become prosperous, and not die until they are very old?’

     ⁸ They see their children around them,

         and they watch them while they grow up and start to live in their own houses.

     ⁹ Wicked people live in their own houses without being afraid,

         and God does not punish them.

     ¹⁰ Their bulls always mate with the cows successfully,

         and the cows always give birth to calves and never miscarry.

     ¹¹ Wicked people send their young children outside to play,

         and the children jump around happily like lambs in a pasture.

     ¹² The children sing to the sound of tambourines and lyres,

         and they are happy to hear the sound of flutes.

     ¹³ Wicked people enjoy having good things all the time that they are alive,

         and they die quietly and go down to the place of the dead.

     ¹⁴ While they are alive, they say to God, ‘Leave us alone;

         we do not care about how you desire us to conduct our lives!

     ¹⁵ Why do you, Almighty God, think that we should serve you?

         What advantage do we get if we pray to you?’

     ¹⁶ Wicked people think that they have become prosperous because of what they have done,

         but I do not want to have anything to do with their thinking.

     ¹⁷ How often does it happen that wicked people die,

         without experiencing disasters?

         Does God ever punish them because he is angry with them?

     ¹⁸ He does not blow them away as wind blows away straw;

         they are never carried off by a whirlwind.

     ¹⁹ You say, ‘When people have committed sins,

         God waits and punishes their children because of those sins;’

     I say that God should punish those who sin, not their children,

         in order that the sinners may know that it is because of their own sins that they are being punished.

     ²⁰ I hope that wicked people will live to experience God destroying them,

         that they will experience Almighty God punishing them.

     ²¹ After wicked people are dead,

         they are not at all concerned for their families who are still alive.

     ²² Since God judges everyone, even those who are in heaven,

         who can teach him anything?

     ²³ Some people die while they are very healthy,

         while they are peaceful and not afraid of anything.

     ²⁴ Their bodies are fat;

         their bones are strong.

     ²⁵ Other people die being very miserable;

         they have never experienced good things happening to them.

     ²⁶ They die and are buried,

         and maggots cover their bodies.

     Everyone dies, so it is clear that dying is not always the punishment for being wicked.

     ²⁷ Listen, I know what you three are thinking,

         and I know the evil things that you plan to do to me.

     ²⁸ You say, ‘What happened to the tents in which wicked people were living?

         The houses of evil rulers have been destroyed!’

     ²⁹ Have you never asked people who travel much?

         Do you not believe their reports about what they have seen,

     ³⁰ that wicked people usually do not suffer at the time when there are great disasters;

         that when God punishes people, someone rescues the wicked? that wicked people are the ones whom someone else rescues when God punishes people?

     ³¹ There is no one who accuses wicked people,

         and there is no one who pays them back for all the evil things that they have done.

     ³² When the corpses of wicked people are carried to their graves,

         people are put there to guard those graves.

     ³³ A huge number of people go to the grave site;

         some go in front of the procession and some come behind,

         and the wicked ones who have died surely feel good when people throw clods of dirt on their graves.

     ³⁴ So how can you comfort me by talking nonsense?

         Every reply that you give me is full of lies!”

Chapter 22

¹ Then Eliphaz replied, saying this:

     ² “No one can be useful to God!

         People who are wise can be useful to themselves, but not to God.

     ³ If you were righteous, that would not please Almighty God, would it?

         If you lived a perfect life, that would not help him, would it?

     ⁴ Do you honor God, and is that why he punishes you?

         Is that the reason that he puts you on trial?

     ⁵ No, it certainly must be because you are extremely wicked.

         It must be that no one can count the evil things that you have done!

     ⁶ You must have lent money to others and wrongly forced them to give you things to guarantee that they would pay that money back to you;

         you must have taken all their clothes and left them with nothing to wear.

     ⁷ You must not have given water to those who were thirsty,

         and you must have refused to give food to those who were hungry.

     ⁸ Because you were very powerful, you must have taken over all the people’s land,

         and then you began to live on that land, even though others honored you very much.

     ⁹ When widows came to you for help, you must have sent them away without giving them anything,

         and you must have oppressed orphans.

     ¹⁰ Because you did all those things, now there are traps that will catch you;

         now things appear that terrify you and cause you to tremble.

     ¹¹ It is as though it had become very dark, with the result that you cannot see anything,

         and it is as though a flood covered you.

     ¹² But consider this, Job: God lives high up in the heavens.

         From there he looks down on the highest stars.

     ¹³ So why do you say, ‘God knows nothing about what we are doing’?

         And why do you say, ‘Dark clouds keep him from seeing us, so he cannot judge us’?

     ¹⁴ Do you think that while he walks on the dome that covers the sky,

         where there are thick clouds around him, he cannot see what we do?’

     ¹⁵ Will you, Job, continue to conduct your life in the old way

         that evil people have done for many years?

     ¹⁶ They suddenly died while they were still young;

         they disappeared like everything disappears when there is a flood .

     ¹⁷ They kept saying to God, ‘Leave us alone,’ ‘Allow us to be alone,’

         and they also said defiantly, ‘Almighty God can do nothing to harm us!’

     ¹⁸ Yet it was God who filled their houses with good things;

         so I cannot agree at all to follow what the wicked plan.

     ¹⁹ When righteous people see that God punishes wicked people, they are glad,

         and they laugh at those wicked people.

     ²⁰ They say, ‘Now our enemies have been destroyed,

         and fire has burned up anything left of their wealth.’

     ²¹ So, Job, be reconciled to God and make peace with him;

         if you do that, good things will happen to you.

     ²² Allow him to teach you,

         and put his words into your mind.

     ²³ If you humble yourself and return to God, he will restore you;

         if you stop doing all the evil things that you have been doing in your house,

     ²⁴ and if you throw away your gold,

         the fine gold from the dry stream beds in Ophir land,

     ²⁵ then Almighty God will be to be as precious to you as your gold and your silver have been.

     ²⁶ Then you will be happy because of God,

         and you will be able to approach him confidently.

     ²⁷ You will pray to him, and he will do what you request him to do;

         you will do the things that you promised him that you would do.

     ²⁸ Everything that you decide to do will be successful;

         it will be as though a light were shining on the road in front of you.

     ²⁹ God humbles those who are proud,

         but he saves those who are downcast.

     ³⁰ God rescues those who are not innocent;

         they will be rescued because you do what is right.”

Chapter 23

¹ Then Job replied and said this:

     ² “Today I am again complaining bitterly to God;

         I continue to groan, but I suffer even more.

     ³ I wish that I knew where I could meet with him

         so that I could go to the place where he lives.

     ⁴ If I could do that, I would tell him why I know that I am innocent;

         I would tell him many reasons for that.

     ⁵ Then I would find out and understand what he would reply to me.

     ⁶ Would he use his great power to argue with me?

         No, he would listen to me carefully.

     ⁷ I am an honest man, so I would be able to discuss things with him fairly,

         and then he would declare that I am innocent, and he would not trouble me again.

     ⁸ However, I have gone to the east, and he is not there;

         I have gone to the west, but I have not found him there.

     ⁹ I have gone north and I have gone south,

         but I have not seen him anywhere for he keeps himself from me.

     ¹⁰ He knows how I have conducted my life;

         when he has finished testing me, he will see that I am as pure as gold whose impurities have all been burned out.

     ¹¹ I have faithfully walked on the road that he showed me;

         I have not turned away from obeying him.

     ¹² I have always obeyed what he commanded;

         I have hidden away in my inner being the words that he has spoken.

     ¹³ He never changes. There is no one who can stop him from doing what he desires.

         Whatever he wants to do, he does.

     ¹⁴ He will finish doing the things that he has planned for me,

         and I am sure that he has thought about doing many things for me.

     ¹⁵ So I am terrified when I am in front of him;

         when I think about what he can do, I am very afraid.

     ¹⁶ Almighty God has made me very afraid.

     ¹⁷ The thick darkness in front of me has not make me silent,

         even that terrible darkness that covers my face has not kept me from speaking.”

Chapter 24

     ¹ “Why does Almighty God not set a time when he will judge evil people?

         The people who obey God never seem to see him judge the evil people.

     ² Some evil people remove the boundary markers of other people’s land, in order to take their land;

         they seize other people’s sheep and put them in their own pastures.

     ³ Some take away the donkeys that belong to orphans,

         and they take widows’ oxen to guarantee that the widows will pay back the money that they loaned to those widows.

     ⁴ Some shove poor people off the road,

         and they force poor people to find places to hide from them.

     ⁵ The result is that poor people have to search for food in the desert plain

         like wild donkeys do.

     ⁶ The poor people harvest leftover grain in other people’s fields,

         and gather leftover grapes from vineyards that belong to wicked men.

     ⁷ During the night they have nothing to cover their bodies,

         nothing to keep them warm.

     ⁸ When it rains in the mountains, they become very wet,

         so they huddle under the rock ledges to protect themselves from the rain.

     ⁹ Some evil men snatch poor, fatherless infants away from their mothers;

         they say ‘I will return your babies to you when you repay the money that I lent to you.’

     ¹⁰ But the poor people walk around with no clothes on;

         they are hungry while they are working to carry other people’s bundles of grain to the places where their grain will be threshed.

     ¹¹ Poor people are hired by these wicked people to make olive oil for them;

         they tread on grapes to make juice for wine,

         but they are not allowed to drink any of it when they are thirsty.

     ¹² In the cities, people who are wounded and dying cry out to God for help,

         but God ignores their prayers.

     ¹³ Some wicked people avoid the light because they do evil things in the dark;

         they do not walk on roads that are lit.

     ¹⁴ Murderers steal things during the night,

         and then they rise before dawn in order that they may go out again and kill poor and needy people.

     ¹⁵ Those who want to commit adultery wait for evening to come;

         they say, ‘I do not want anyone to see me,’ so they keep their faces covered.

     ¹⁶ It is during the night that robbers break into houses to steal things,

         but during the day they hide because they want to avoid being seen in the light.

     ¹⁷ All of those people want to do their evil deeds at night, not in the morning when it is light,

         because they are not afraid of the things that happen during the night that terrify others.

     ¹⁸ However, those wicked people will disappear very quickly,

         and God will curse the land that they owned;

         no one will go any longer to work in their vineyards.

     ¹⁹ Just as the snow melts away when it is hot and there is no rain,

         those who have sinned will disappear into the place where the dead people are.

     ²⁰ Not even their mothers will remember them;

         wicked people will be destroyed like trees that are cut down,

         and maggots will eat their corpses.

     ²¹ The wicked mistreat women who have been unable to give birth to children who would have grown up to take care of them;

         the wicked they never help widows.

     ²² But God, by his power, gets rid of mighty people.

         He causes the wicked people to die.

     ²³ God allows them to think that they are secure and safe,

         but he is watching them all the time.

     ²⁴ They prosper for a little while,

         and then suddenly they are gone;

         God will make them die like all the other people;

         they will be like stalks of grain that the farmers have cut off.

     ²⁵ If this is not true, is there anyone who will show that I am a liar

         and prove me wrong?”

Chapter 25

¹ Then Bildad also replied:

     ² “God is very powerful; everyone should honor him very much;

         he causes everything to be peaceful high up in heaven, with no confusion at all.

     ³ Can anyone count the angels who are in his army in heaven?

         Is there any person on whom his light does not shine?

     ⁴ So how can God consider any person to be righteous?

         How can he accept any human being?

     ⁵ Consider this: God does not even think that the full moon is bright,

         and he does not even accept the stars in the heavens as worthy of him.

     ⁶ So what about humans?

         They are as insignificant as maggots.

         God does not think more highly of people than he thinks of worms.”

Chapter 26

¹ Job replied to Bildad:

     ² “I am a very weak and helpless man;

         you do not really think that you have helped me at all, do you?

     ³ You certainly do not think that you have given me good advice, do you?—me, who am not wise at all.

     ⁴ Who helped you to say all those great things?

         Who inspired you to speak like you did?

     ⁵ The spirits of dead people tremble with fear,

         those who are under the waters

     and everyone who dwells with them.

     ⁶ God knows all about those who are in the place of the dead;

         there is nothing down there that prevents God from seeing what is there.

     ⁷ God stretches out heaven

     over the empty spaces,

         and he places the earth in that huge empty space, but it is not resting on anything.

     ⁸ He fills the thick clouds with water

         and prevents that water from bursting the clouds.

     ⁹ He causes clouds to obscure the moon.

     ¹⁰ He separates the light from the darkness

         and puts the horizon to mark the place where the night ends and the daytime begins.

     ¹¹ When he is angry, it is as though he rebuked the pillars that hold up the sky.

         They are shocked, and they tremble.

     ¹² By his power he calmed the sea;

         by his skill he destroyed Rahab, the huge sea monster.

     ¹³ By his breath he caused the sky to be bright;

         by his hand he killed the great dragon in the sea as it was fleeing from him.

     ¹⁴ But those events show only a small amount of his power;

         it is as though we were hearing only whispers of his powerful voice.

         When we hear thunder, we say, ‘Who can really understand how great his power is?’”

Chapter 27

¹ Job continued speaking to his three friends:

     ² “Almighty God has refused to treat me justly.

         He has caused me to feel bitter.

         But just as surely as he lives,

     ³ I will say this as long as God’s Spirit enables me to breathe!

     ⁴ I will not lie!

         I will not say anything to deceive anyone.

     ⁵ I will never admit that what you three have said is true;

         until the day that I die, I will insist that I have not done things that are wrong.

     ⁶ I will say that I am innocent, and I will never say anything different;

         my inner being will never reproach me as long as I live.

     ⁷ I want God to punish my enemies like he will punish all wicked people;

         I want him to punish those who oppose me like he punishes all unrighteous people.

     ⁸ When it is time for God to get rid of godless people and to cause them to die,

         there is absolutely nothing good that they can confidently expect to happen to them.

     ⁹ When they experience troubles, God will not hear them call out to him for help, will he?

     ¹⁰ Will they be happy about what Almighty God does?

         Will they begin to pray to him frequently?

         Certainly not!

     ¹¹ I will teach you three something about God’s power;

         I will reveal to you what he is thinking.

     ¹² You three have seen for yourselves powerful things that God has done;

         so I do not understand why you have been saying such nonsense to me.

     ¹³ I will tell you what Almighty God does to wicked people,

         what he does to people who mistreat others.

     ¹⁴ Even if they have many children, those children will die in wars,

         or they will die because they do not have enough food to eat.

     ¹⁵ Their children who are still alive after they themselves die will perish from diseases,

         and the wives they leave behind will not even mourn for them.

     ¹⁶ Sometimes wicked people accumulate a huge amount of silver

         and pile up clothes as potters pile up clay,

     ¹⁷ but those wicked people will die, and then righteous people will wear those clothes,

         and honest people will get their silver and divide it among themselves.

     ¹⁸ The houses that they build are as weak as spider webs;

         they are like flimsy huts that watchmen live in while they guard people’s fields.

     ¹⁹ The wicked people are rich when they lie down at night,

         but when they wake up in the morning, they find out that their money has disappeared.

     ²⁰ Things that terrify them come to them like a flood that they do not expect;

         during the night a whirlwind carries them away.

     ²¹ It is as though the wind from the east had picked them up and carried them away from their homes,

         and they disappear forever.

     ²² That wind strikes them without pitying them

         while they are running away, trying to escape from its force.

     ²³ That wind is like someone clapping his hands at them to mock them,

         howling at them and forcing them to run away.”

Chapter 28

     ¹ “It is true that there are places where men dig to find silver,

         and there are places where people refine gold that they have dug.

     ² People dig iron ore out of the ground,

         and they also smelt copper.

     ³ Men use lamps while they work far down under the ground

         to search for the ore inside the mines

         where it is very dark.

     ⁴ They dig shafts in places that are far from where people live,

         where travelers do not go.

     They work far away from other people,

         swinging back and forth on ropes as they descend into the mine shafts.

     ⁵ Food grows on the surface of the ground,

         but down under the ground, where there is no food, the miners make fires to break apart the rocks.

     ⁶ The stones that are dug from under the ground contain sapphires,

         and the dirt contains bits of gold.

     ⁷ Some birds have very good eyes,

     but even hawks do not know where the mines are,

         and falcons have not seen those places.

     ⁸ Lions or other proud wild animals have never gone to those places.

     ⁹ Miners dig very hard rock;

         it is as though they turned the mountains upside down to get the ore.

     ¹⁰ They cut tunnels through the rocks,

         and they find precious things.

     ¹¹ They dam up small streams to stop the water from flowing,

         and they bring up into the light things that are hidden in the ground and in the streams.

     ¹² But wisdom: Where can people find that?

         Where can we find out how to truly understand things?

     ¹³ Humans do not know what wisdom is truly worth;

         no one can find it here on this earth where they are living.

     ¹⁴ It is as though the water that is under the earth and water that is in the seas said,

         ‘I do not have it!’

     ¹⁵ People cannot buy wisdom

         by paying for it with silver or gold.

     ¹⁶ Wisdom is worth much more than fine gold from the land of Ophir,

         much more than very valuable stones.

     ¹⁷ It is worth much more than gold or beautiful quartz;

         wisdom is more expensive than the finest jewels, and it is worth more than a vase made with pure gold.

     ¹⁸ Wisdom is worth more than coral or crystal quartz;

         the price of wisdom is higher than the price of rubies.

     ¹⁹ The prices of topaz from Ethiopia and of pure gold

         are lower than the value of wisdom.

     ²⁰ So from where does wisdom come?

         Where can we find out how to truly understand things?

     ²¹ No living humans can see it;

         and birds cannot see it while they are up in the sky.

     ²² It is as though the places where people go after they die said,

         ‘We have only heard rumors about where to find wisdom.’

     ²³ God is the only one who knows how to find wisdom;

         he knows where it is

     ²⁴ because he can see things even in the most remote places on the earth;

         he can see everything that is below the sky.

     ²⁵ He decided how strongly the winds should blow,

         and how much rain should be in the clouds.

     ²⁶ He decided where rain should fall,

         and what path lightning should take from the clouds down to the ground.

     ²⁷ At that time he saw wisdom and decided that it is very valuable.

         He examined it and approved it.

     ²⁸ And then he said to human beings, ‘Listen! If you have much respect for me, you will be able to become wise;

         to truly understand everything, you must first turn away from doing what is evil.’”

Chapter 29

¹ Job spoke again and said this:

     ² “I wish that I could be as I was previously

         during the years when God took care of me.

     ³ During those years, it was as though God’s lamp shone on me

         and gave me light while I walked in the darkness.

     ⁴ At that time I was young and strong,

         and because God was my friend, he protected where I lived.

     ⁵ Almighty God was with me during those years

         when all my children were around me.

     ⁶ My herds provided me with plenty of milk,

         and streams of oil flowed from the rock where my servants pressed the olives.

     ⁷ Whenever I went to the place where the elders gathered at the city gate,

         I sat down with them,

     ⁸ and when the young men saw me, they stepped aside respectfully,

         and the old men also stood respectfully.

     ⁹ The leaders of the people used to stop talking,

     ¹⁰ and even the most important men became quiet

         and stopped talking in order to hear me speak to them.

     ¹¹ When they all heard what I told them,

         they said good things about me.

     When they saw me, they always praised me

     ¹² because I had helped those who were poor when they cried out for help,

         and because I aided those who had no fathers, those who had no one else to help them.

     ¹³ Those who were suffering and about to die praised me,

         and I caused widows to sing joyfully, because I helped them.

     ¹⁴ I always acted justly;

         my actions were like a robe that I wore and like a turban that was wrapped around my head.

     ¹⁵ It was as though I myself saw for blind people

         and walked for people who were lame.

     ¹⁶ I was like a father to the poor people,

         and in the courts I defended those who were strangers to me.

     ¹⁷ I made wicked people stop oppressing others; it was like someone who breaks the teeth of wild animals

         and forces them to drop their victims from their teeth.

     ¹⁸ At that time I thought, ‘Surely I will live in peace until I am very old,

         and I will die at home with my family.

     ¹⁹ I am like a tree whose roots reach down into the water

         and whose branches become wet with dew each night.

     ²⁰ People always honor me,

         and I am always strong like a new bow.’

     ²¹ When I spoke, people waited to hear what I would say;

         they remained silent until I advised them what they should do.

     ²² After I finished speaking, they did not say anymore;

         it was as though my words fell on their ears like drops of rain.

     ²³ They waited for me to speak as they wait for rain;

         they liked what I said as farmers appreciate the final rain in the spring before the dry season.

     ²⁴ When they were sad, I smiled at them to encourage them;

         they became encouraged when they saw my cheerful face.

     ²⁵ I was their leader, and I decided what things would be good for them to do;

         I was among them like a king who is among his troops;

         I was like someone who comforts others who are mourning.”

Chapter 30

     ¹ “But now, men who are younger than I am make fun of me—

         men whose fathers I greatly despised—

         their fathers, whom I would not even have allowed to help my dogs guard my sheep.

     ² They were men who were old and weak;

         what could I gain from having these men work for me, even when they thought they were strong?

     ³ They were very poor and hungry,

         so that they chewed on roots at night

         in dry and desolate places.

     ⁴ They pulled up plants in the desert and ate them;

         they warmed themselves by burning the roots of broom trees.

     ⁵ Everyone shouted at them, “Stop, thief!”

         and drove them from their area.

     ⁶ They were forced to live in riverbeds,

         in holes in the ground, and in the sides of cliffs.

     ⁷ In the bushes they howled like animals because they were hungry,

         and they huddled together under thornbushes.

     ⁸ They were people without good sense,

         whose names no one knows;

     they were driven out from the land where they were born.

     ⁹ Now their children sing songs to make fun of me.

         They tell jokes about me.

     ¹⁰ They are disgusted with me, and they stay away from me,

         but when they see me, they are happy to spit in my face.

     ¹¹ It seems as though God had cut my bowstring and caused me to be unable to defend myself; he has humbled me,

         and my enemies have done to me whatever they wanted.

     ¹² Gangs of these people attack me and force me to run away;

         they prepare to destroy me.

     ¹³ They prevent me from escaping,

         and there is no one to keep them from attacking me.

     ¹⁴ It is as though I were a city wall and they had broken through it,

         as though they had come crashing down on me.

     ¹⁵ I am very terrified;

         my dignity has been blown away by the wind,

         and my prosperity has disappeared as clouds disappear.

     ¹⁶ Now I am about to die;

         I suffer every day.

     ¹⁷ My bones ache during the nights,

         and the pain that torments me never stops.

     ¹⁸ It is as though God had grabbed my clothes

         and choked me by the collar of my coat.

     ¹⁹ He has thrown me into the mud;

         I am not worth anything more than dust and ashes.

     ²⁰ I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer me;

         I stand up and pray, but you do not pay any attention.

     ²¹ You act very cruelly toward me;

         with all of your power you cause me to suffer.

     ²² You allow the wind to lift me up and blow me away;

         and you make a violent storm blow me around.

     ²³ I know that you will cause me to die,

         which is what happens to everyone who is alive.

     ²⁴ When people experience disasters,

         they sit on a pile of ruins and cry out for help;

         they certainly cry out for help.

     ²⁵ I myself wept for people who were experiencing troubles,

         and I felt sorry for poor people.

     ²⁶ However, when I expected good things to happen to me, evil things happened;

         when I waited for light, I experienced darkness instead.

     ²⁷ I am very distressed all the time;

         I suffer every day.

     ²⁸ I go about very discouraged;

         I stand up and plead for people to help me.

     ²⁹ My wailing is as sad as jackals and ostriches in the wilderness.

     ³⁰ My skin has become dark and is peeling off,

         and I have a fever which causes my body to feel as though it were burning up with a fever.

     ³¹ Previously, I played joyful music on my harp and with my flute,

         but now I play only the sad music of those who mourn.”

Chapter 31

     ¹ “I made to myself a solemn promise

         that I would not look at a young woman and want to sleep with her.

     ² If I did not do what I promised,

         what would God who is in heaven give me?

         Almighty God would certainly not give me any reward!

     ³ Previously I thought that surely it was unrighteous people who would experience calamities,

         and that it was those who do what is wrong who would experience disasters.

     ⁴ God certainly sees everything that I do,

         so why is he causing me to suffer?

         It is as though he were counting every step that I take.

     ⁵ I solemnly declare that I have never acted wickedly

         and have never tried to deceive people.

     ⁶ I request only that God judge me fairly;

         if he does that, he will know that I am innocent.

     ⁷ If it were true that I had turned away from walking on the right paths,

         or that I had seen wrong things to do and then did them,

         or that my hands were stained because I had sinned,

     ⁸ then I hope that when I plant seeds, someone else will harvest the crops and eat them,

         and that others will uproot the crops that I have planted.

     ⁹ If it is true that I have been attracted by some other man’s wife,

         or that I have hidden myself and waited outside the door to her house,

     ¹⁰ I hope another man will sleep with my own wife

         and that she will sleep with him.

     ¹¹ For me to do that would be a terrible sin,

         and the judges would decide that I should be punished.

     ¹² My adultery would produce in me a fire like the fire that burns people in hell,

         and it would burn up everything that I own.

     ¹³ If it is true that I have ever refused to listen to one of my male or female servants

         when they complained to me about something,

     ¹⁴ I hope that God would stand up and declare that he will punish me;

         when he does that, what could I do?

         If he asked me about what I have done, what would I answer?

     ¹⁵ God, who created me, certainly also created my servants;

         surely he is the one who formed them and me in our mothers’ wombs,

         so we all should behave toward each other in the same way.

     ^16-18 From the time I was young I have taken care of orphans; All my life I have never given the widowed mothers a reason to lose hope.

     So if it is true that I ate all my food myself and did not share some of it with orphans,

         or that I refused to give poor people the things that they wanted,

         or that I caused widows to live in despair, then you do to me whatever you must do to me.

     ¹⁹ If I had seen people die from cold because they had no clothes,

         or that I had seen poor people who did not have clothes to keep them warm,

     ²⁰ and they were not able to become warm from clothes made from the wool of my sheep

         and they thanked me for it,

     ²¹ or if it is true that I threatened to strike any orphan

         because I knew that the elders at the city gates would approve of me, then do to me whatever you must do to me.

     ²² For if those things were true about me, I hope that my shoulder blade would be torn out

         and my arm be torn from my shoulder.

     ²³ I always feared that God would cause me to experience a great disaster if I did any of those evil things,

         and I would not have been able to endure the powerful things that he would do to punish me.

     ²⁴ If it is true that I trusted in my gold,

     ²⁵ or that I rejoiced because I had acquired many things

         and had become very rich,

     ²⁶ or that I looked at the sun when it was shining,

         or that I looked at the beautiful moon,

     ²⁷ and I had been tempted to worship them

         by kissing my hand to honor them,

     ²⁸ those things also would be sins for which the judges would say that I must be punished

         because I would have been rejecting God by doing those things.

     ^29-30 It is not true that I sinned by requesting God to curse people who hated me

         and to cause them to die because I was angry with them.

     It is not true that I was glad when they were ruined

         or that I rejoiced when they experienced disasters. No!

     ^31-32 No one can truthfully that I did not welcome travelers to stay in my house,

         or that I did not open my doors to them, but that I forced them to sleep in the streets!

         All the men who work for me certainly know that I have given food to anyone who needed it!

     ³³ Some people try to hide their sins,

         but I have never done that;

     ³⁴ and I never remained silent and refused to go outside

         because I was afraid of what people would say about me,

         and that they would hate me.

     ³⁵ I wish that there was someone who would hear what I am saying!

         I solemnly declare that all that I have said is true.

     I wish that those who oppose me would write down on a scroll the evil things that they say that I did.

     ³⁶ If they did that, I would wear that scroll on my shoulder or on top of my head, in order that everyone could see it.

     ³⁷ I would tell God everything that I have done,

         and I would approach him like a ruler would, without being afraid.

     ³⁸ If it is true that I have stolen land,

         so that its furrows were like someone who shouted out to accuse me;

     ³⁹ or that I have eaten the crops that grew in someone else’s fields

         without paying for those crops,

         so that the farmers who grew those crops died from hunger;

     ⁴⁰ then I wish that thorns would grow in my fields instead of wheat,

         and that bad weeds would grow instead of barley!”

     That is the end of what Job said to his three friends.

Chapter 32

¹ Then those three men stopped replying to Job because they could not convince Job that he had done anything wrong. ² Then Elihu son of Barakel, a descendant of Buz, from the clan of Ram, became very angry at Job. He was angry because Job continued to claim that he was innocent, and that God had been wrong to punish him. ³ He was also angry with Job’s three friends because they had declared that Job must have done many things that were wrong, but they could not convince him. ⁴ Now Elihu was younger than the others, so he waited until they had finished speaking before he replied to Job. ⁵ But when Elihu realized that the three men had no more to say to Job, he became angry.

⁶ This is what he said:

     “I am young, and you all are much older than I am.

         So I was timid, and I was afraid to tell you what I was thinking.

     ⁷ I said to myself, ‘Let those who are much older speak

         because older people should be able to say things that are wise.’

     ⁸ However, the Spirit of Almighty God is within people, and it is he who enables them to be wise.

     ⁹ Not all people become wise when they are old;

         not all old people understand what is right.

     ¹⁰ That is why I say to you now, ‘Listen to me,

         and allow me to declare what I know.’

     ¹¹ I waited for you all to speak;

         I wanted to hear the wise things that you would say.

         I waited while you thought carefully about what you should say.

     ¹² I paid attention carefully,

         but surprisingly, none of you was able to prove that what Job said was wrong.

     ¹³ So do not say to yourselves, ‘We have discovered what is wise!’

         It is God who must refute Job because you three have not been able to do that.

     ¹⁴ Job was replying to you, not to me,

         so I will not reply to him by saying what you three have said.

     ¹⁵ I tell myself this: These three men are confused because they have nothing more to say to Job;

         they have nothing more to say to him.

     ¹⁶ But because you do not speak, I certainly will not wait any longer;

         you merely stand there and do not reply anymore.

     ¹⁷ So now I also will reply to Job

         and tell him what I know.

     ¹⁸ I have plenty to say,

         and my spirit forces me to say it.

     ¹⁹ My inner being is like a container of wine that is stretching more and more from the fermentation,

         and it will soon burst.

     ²⁰ I must speak in order that I can rest from trying to hold in my words;

         I must say something to reply to you all.

     ²¹ I will speak fairly, not favoring any of you,

         and I will not try to flatter anyone.

     ²² I really do not know how to flatter people;

         if I did that, God would soon destroy me.”

Chapter 33

     ¹ “Now, Job, listen carefully

         to all that I am going to say.

     ² I am ready to tell you what I think.

     ³ In my inner being I know that I am speaking honestly

         and that I am speaking sincerely.

     ⁴ Almighty God has created me as well as you,

         and with his breath he has caused me to live.

     ⁵ So answer what I say if you can;

         think carefully what you will reply to me.

     ⁶ God considers that you and I are both the same;

         he formed both of us from clay.

     ⁷ So you do not need to be afraid of me;

         I will not speak against you harshly.

     ⁸ I have heard you speak,

         and this is what you have said:

     ⁹ ‘I am innocent, and I have not committed any sins;

         I am pure, and I have not done things that are wrong.

     ¹⁰ But God finds reasons to accuse me,

         and he considers that I am his enemy.

     ¹¹ It is as though he had put my feet in stocks,

         and he watches everything that I do.’

     ¹² However, what you have said is wrong,

         and I will tell you what you have said that is wrong.

         God is much greater than any human.

     ¹³ So, why are you arguing against God? He does not have to tell us why he does anything.

     ¹⁴ God does, indeed, speak to us in various ways,

         but we do not pay any attention to what he says.

     ¹⁵ Sometimes he speaks to us at night in dreams and visions

         when we are on our beds, heavily asleep.

     ¹⁶ He reveals things to us in those times;

         he terrifies us by warning us about things.

     ¹⁷ He tells us those things in order that we may stop doing evil deeds

         and to prevent us from becoming proud.

     ¹⁸ He does not want us to be destroyed;

         he wants to prevent us from dying while we are still young.

     ¹⁹ God also corrects us by forcing us to lie on our beds, suffering much pain

         and fever in our bones.

     ²⁰ The result is that we do not desire any food,

         not even very special food.

     ²¹ Our bodies become very thin so that we look like a skeleton,

         and our bones stick out so others can count them.

     ²² We know that we will soon die

         and go to the place where dead people are.

     ²³ Yet sometimes an angel may come to one of us,

         one of the thousands of angels who come to intervene between us and God,

         to tell us what are the right things for us to do.

     ²⁴ The angel is kind to us and says to God,

         ‘Please release that person,

     so that he does not descend to the place where dead people are!

         Do that because I have found a way for you to keep him from dying!

     ²⁵ Please let his body be strong again;

         please allow him to be strong like he was when he was young!’

     ²⁶ If that happens, that person will pray to God, and God will accept him;

         he will enter God’s presence joyfully,

         and then he will tell others how God saved him from dying.

     ²⁷ He will sing as he says to everyone,

     ‘I sinned, and I did things that were not right,

         but God did not punish me in the way that I deserved.

     ²⁸ He has saved me from dying and going to the place where dead people are,

         and I will continue to enjoy being alive.’

     ²⁹ God does all these things for us many times;

     ³⁰ he preserves us from dying and going to the place where the dead are,

         in order that we can continue to enjoy being alive.

     ³¹ So Job, listen to me;

         do not say anything more; just allow me to speak.

     ³² After I speak, if you have something more that you want to say to me,

         say it, because I would like to find a way to declare that you are innocent.

     ³³ However, if you have nothing more that you want to say, then just listen to me,

         and I will teach you how to become wise.”

Chapter 34

¹ Then Elihu continued by saying this:

     ² “You men who think that you are very wise, listen to me;

         listen to what I am saying, you men who say that you know so much.

     ³ When we hear people talk,

         we think carefully about what they say to know what is good and what is bad,

         as we taste food to know what is good to eat.

     ⁴ We must decide who is saying what is right,

         and we must find out together for ourselves what is good.

     ⁵ Job has said, ‘I am innocent,

         but God has refused to judge me fairly.

     ⁶ Even though I have always done what is right,

         he is lying about me.

     Even though I have not done what is wrong,

         he has caused me to suffer, and I will certainly die because of this.’

     ⁷ Is there any person like Job, who insults others as easily as people accept a drink of water?

     ⁸ He habitually associates with people who do what is evil

         and spends time with wicked people.

     ⁹ He certainly does these things, because he has said, ‘It is useless for people to try to please God.’

     ¹⁰ So, you men who claim that you understand everything, listen to me!

     Almighty God would never consider doing anything that is wicked or wrong!

     ¹¹ He pays back people for what they have done;

         he gives them what they deserve for the way that they have conducted their lives.

     ¹² Truly, Almighty God never does what is wicked;

         he never calls wrongdoing right.

     ¹³ No one gave him the authority to rule everything on the earth;

         no one put him in control of the whole world.

         He has always had that authority.

     ¹⁴ If he ever thought only about himself and not about us also, and if he ever stopped making us live,

     ¹⁵ everyone would die immediately,

         and their corpses would soon become soil again.

     ¹⁶ So, Job, if you say that you understand everything,

         listen to what I am saying.

     ¹⁷ God could certainly never hate what is right and still rule the world.

         So you really cannot criticize God, who is righteous and powerful, and you cannot say that what he has done is wrong, can you?

     ¹⁸ He tells some kings that they are worthless,

         and he says to some officials that they are wicked.

     ¹⁹ He does not favor rulers more than he favors others;

         he does not favor rich people more than poor people

         because he created all of them.

     ²⁰ They often die suddenly;

         he strikes them at midnight and they die;

         he gets rid of important people without the help of any humans.

     ²¹ He sees everything that people do;

         when we walk, he watches every step that we take.

     ²² There is no gloom or darkness

         in which wicked people can hide from God.

     ²³ God does not need to set a time

         when we will stand in front of him in order that he may judge us.

         He already knows everything about us.

     ²⁴ He destroys important people without needing to investigate what they have done,

         and he appoints others to take their places.

     ²⁵ Because he already knows what they have done,

         he removes them at night and gets rid of them.

     ²⁶ He strikes them because of the wicked things that they have done;

         many people see him do it.

     ²⁷ He strikes them down because they turned away from doing what he wanted them to do

         and did not pay attention to any of his commands.

     ²⁸ They mistreated poor people;

         those poor people cried out to God for help,

         and he heard them.

     ²⁹ Yet even if God decides to do nothing to punish wicked people,

         no one can criticize him.

     God controls all nations and all people.

     ³⁰ He does this so that those who rule over us may honor him,

         so that our rulers do not oppress us.

     ³¹ Job, have you or anyone else ever said to God, ‘I have certainly committed sin,

         but I will not sin anymore;

     ³² so teach me what sins I have committed;

     if I have done anything that is evil,

         I will not do it anymore’?

     ³³ Job, you object to what God has done to you,

         but do you think that he will do what you want him to do?

     It is you who must choose what you should say to God, not I;

         tell me what you are thinking about this.

     ³⁴ People who have good sense, those who are wise and who listen to what I say,

         will say to me,

     ³⁵ ‘Job is speaking ignorantly;

         what he says is nonsense.’

     ³⁶ To you friends of Job, I say this: I think that a court should thoroughly try Job,

         because he answers us, his friends, as wicked men would answer.

     ³⁷ To add to the other sins that he has committed, he is rebelling against God;

         he shows us that he does not honor God;

         he makes long speeches saying that God has punished him unjustly.”

Chapter 35

¹ Then Elihu also said this:

     ² “Job, do you really think that you have done nothing wrong?

     You say, ‘God knows that I am innocent,’

     ³ and you also say, ‘What good have I received for not sinning?

         What benefit have I received that I would not have had, even if I had sinned?’

     ⁴ Well, I will answer you,

         and I will answer your three friends, too.

     ⁵ Job, look up at the sky;

         look at the clouds that are high above you

         and realize that God is far above everything, entirely out of your reach.

     ⁶ If you have sinned, that cannot harm God at all.

         Even if you do wrong things many, many times, that certainly does not hurt him.

     ⁷ In the same way, if you are righteous, does that help God?

         No, nothing you do can help him.

     ⁸ It is other people who can suffer because of the wicked things that you do;

         In the same way, you might help others if you do good things for them.

     ⁹ People cry out because of the many things that others do to make them suffer;

         they call for help because of the things that powerful people do to them.

     ¹⁰ But no one calls out to God

         and says, ‘Why does God, my creator, not help me?

         He should enable me to sing joyful songs, instead of very sad songs, during the night.

     ¹¹ He should be able to teach us more than he teaches the wild animals;

         he should enable us to become wiser than all the birds are!’

     ¹² People cry out for help,

         but God does not answer them

         because those who cry out are proud and evil people.

     ¹³ It is useless for them to cry out

         because God, the Almighty One, does not pay any attention to what they say.

     ¹⁴ So when you complain that you cannot see God,

         and you tell him that you are waiting for him to decide whether or not you have done wrong,

         he will not listen to you, either!

     ¹⁵ Furthermore, you say that because he does not pay attention when people commit sins,

         he does not become angry and punish them.

     ¹⁶ My friends, you see that Job has said things that are completely useless,

         that he says many things without knowing what in the world he is talking about.”

Chapter 36

¹ Elihu finished speaking by saying this:

     ² “Job, be patient with me a little longer

         because I have something else to teach you.

         I have something else to say in order to prove that God does no wrong.

     ³ I will tell you what I have learned from many sources,

         in order to show that God, my creator, is just.

     ⁴ I will not say anything to you that is false;

         I, who am standing in front of you, am someone who understands things very well.

     ⁵ Really, God is very powerful, and he does not despise anyone,

         and he understands everything.

     ⁶ He does not allow wicked people to remain alive—contrary to what you have claimed,

         and he always acts justly toward those who are suffering.

     ⁷ He always watches over those who are righteous;

         he makes them prosper, as if they were kings,

         and he causes others to honor them forever.

     ⁸ However, if people who commit crimes are caught,

         or if they suffer in prison for having done wrong,

     ⁹ then God shows them what they have done;

         he shows them the sins that they have committed,

         and he shows them that they have been arrogant.

     ¹⁰ He causes them to listen to what he is warning them,

         and he commands them to turn away from doing what is evil.

     ¹¹ If they listen to him and serve him,

         they will prosper and be happy for all the years that they continue to live.

     ¹² But if they do not listen to him,

         they will die violently

         because they understand nothing about God and what he wants them to do.

     ¹³ People who fail to honor God continue being angry,

         and they do not cry out for help

         even when God is punishing them.

     ¹⁴ They die while they are still young,

         disgraced because of their immoral behavior.

     ¹⁵ God actually rescues people by causing them to suffer;

         by afflicting them, he causes them to listen to what he is telling them.

     ¹⁶ Job, I think that God wants to bring you out of your troubles

         and allow you to live without distress;

         he wants your table to be full of very nice food.

     ¹⁷ However, now he is punishing you as he would punish the wicked;

         God has judged you very rightly.

     ¹⁸ Do not let your anger give you an excuse to mock other people,

         and do not let a large amount of money paid as a bribe

     compel you to ruin your life.

     ¹⁹ If that happens, it certainly will not help you to cry out when you are distressed;

         none of your strength will help you in that case.

     ²⁰ Do not wish that it would be nighttime in order that you might mistreat others without anyone knowing it;

         night is the time when even entire people groups are destroyed!

     ²¹ Be careful not to begin doing evil deeds,

         because God has caused you to suffer to prevent you from doing evil.

     ²² Truly, people praise God because he is so powerful;

         there is certainly no teacher who teaches what he teaches.

     ²³ No one has told him what he should do,

         and no one has said to him, ‘You have done what is wrong!’

     ²⁴ People have always sung songs to praise him,

         so you also should never forget to praise him for what he has done.

     ²⁵ All people have seen what he has done,

         but we understand those things only a little.

     ²⁶ How great God is! We are not able to know how great he is,

         and we do not understand how old he is.

     ²⁷ He draws water up from the earth and puts it in clouds

         and causes it to become rain;

     ²⁸ the rain pours down from the sky

         and causes abundant showers to fall on everyone.

     ²⁹ No one can understand how the clouds move across the sky

         or how it thunders in the sky where God lives.

     ³⁰ He causes lightning to flash all around him,

         but he causes the oceans to remain dark.

     ³¹ By providing plenty of rain for everyone,

         he gives them abundant food.

     ³² It is as though he were holding the lightning in his hands,

         and then he commands it to strike where he wants it to.

     ³³ When we hear his thunder, we know that there will be a storm,

         and the cattle know it, too.

Chapter 37

     ¹ “My heart pounds when I think about that.

     ² Listen, all of you, to the thunder,

         which is like God’s voice.

     ³ He sends thunder all across the sky,

         and he sends lighting to the most distant places on the earth.

     ⁴ After the lightning flashes, we hear the thunder,

         which is like God’s powerful voice;

         when he speaks, he does not keep back the lightning.

     ⁵ When God speaks, it causes us to fear him and admire him, as thunder does;

         he does amazing things that we cannot understand.

     ⁶ He commands the snow to fall on the ground,

         and often he makes it rain very hard.

     ⁷ When God does that, it prevents people from working,

         in order that all people may know that he is the one who does these things.

     ⁸ When it rains, the animals go into their hiding places,

         and they stay there until the rain stops.

     ⁹ The storms come from the place in the south where they start,

         and the cold winds come from the north.

     ¹⁰ In the winter water freezes when he commands it,

         and the lakes become ice.

     ¹¹ God fills the clouds with moisture,

         and lightning flashes everywhere from the clouds.

     ¹² He guides the clouds and causes them to move back and forth

         in order that they may accomplish all that he commands them to do all over the world.

     ¹³ Sometimes God sends rain to punish us, sometimes to water the land that he has made,

         and sometimes because he wants to be very kind to us.

     ¹⁴ Job, listen to this;

         stop and think about the wonderful things that God does.

     ¹⁵ Do you know how God commands the lightning to flash down from his clouds?

     ¹⁶ Do you know how God decides where to place the clouds in the sky?

         Can you understand all the wonderful things that God does,

     and how he knows everything and he knows them completely?

     ¹⁷ No, you just sweat there in your hot clothing

         because even the clothes you wear become very hot.

     Your clothing becomes hot because the heat builds up

         when the wind comes from the south.

     ¹⁸ Can you stretch out the skies like God does and make them as hard as a metal mirror?

     ¹⁹ Job, you know so much! So tell us what we should say to God;

         we do not know anything about how we should defend ourselves.

     ²⁰ Should I ask someone to tell God that I want to speak to him?

         No, because if I did that, he might destroy me.

     ²¹ You know that people cannot look directly at the sun

         when it shines brightly in the sky after the wind has blown the clouds away;

         likewise we certainly cannot look at the brightness of God.

     ²² God comes out of the north with a light that shines like gold;

         his glory causes us to be afraid.

     ²³ Almighty God has very great power,

         and we do not know how to go near to him.

     He always acts righteously,

         and he will never mistreat us.

     ²⁴ That is the reason that we have an awesome respect for him;

         he does not pay attention to those who proudly, but wrongly, think that they are wise.”

Chapter 38

¹ Then Yahweh spoke to Job from inside a powerful storm. He said to him,

     ² “Who are you to bring confusion to what I plan to do?

         You are speaking ignorantly!

     ³ I want to ask you some questions,

         so act like a man and

         get ready to answer my questions.

     ⁴ Where were you when I started to create the earth?

         Since you know so much, tell me where you were at that time.

     ⁵ If it was not I who decided how large the earth would be, then who decided?

         Do you know who stretched a line around the earth to measure it?

         Since you think that you know so much, you should surely know that!

     ^6-7 What supports the pillars on which the earth rests?

     When the stars that shine early in the morning sang together,

         and someone put in place the stone that causes the earth to stay in its place,

         and all the angels shouted joyfully when they saw that happen,

     who laid that cornerstone?

     ⁸ When the seas poured out from under the earth,

         who prevented the water from flooding over the land?

     ⁹ It was I, not you, who caused clouds to come over the seas

         and caused it to become very dark under those clouds.

     ¹⁰ I set limits for the seas,

         and I put barriers so that the water would not come over the land.

     ¹¹ I pointed to the shore and said to the water,

         ‘I permit you to come up to here, but I do not permit you to come any farther.

         Your powerful waves must stop here!’

     ¹² Job, have you ever commanded the morning to begin?

         Have you ever told the sun to start rising and begin a new day?

     ¹³ Have you ever told the dawn to spread out over the whole earth

         with the result that wicked people run away from the light?

     ¹⁴ When it becomes light after the dawn,

         the hills and the valleys become clear like a seal gives an image to the clay under it, or like the folds in a cloth.

     ¹⁵ When it becomes daylight, the wicked do not have the darkness that they like;

         in the daylight they no longer are able to hurt anyone.

     ¹⁶ Job, have you traveled to the springs in the bottom of the ocean from which the water in the seas comes?

         Have you investigated the very bottom of the oceans?

     ¹⁷ Has someone shown you the gates to the place where dead people are,

         the gates to the place where it is very dark among those who are dead?

     ¹⁸ Do you know how big the earth is?

         Tell me, if you know all these things!

     ¹⁹ Where is the road to the place where light comes from?

         Can you tell me where darkness lives?

     ²⁰ Can you take the light and the darkness to the places where they must do their work every day?

         Do you know where the road is that goes back to their homes?

     ²¹ I am sure that you know these things

         because you were born before the time when all things were created;

         you must be very old!

     ²² Have you entered the place where I store the snow

         and the place where I keep the hail?

     ²³ I store the snow and the hail in order that I can use them when people are fighting on earth,

         in times when they are fighting wars.

     ²⁴ Where is the road to the place from which I cause the lightning to flash?

         Where is the place from where the east wind begins to blow over all the earth?

     ²⁵ Who created the channels in which the rain comes down from the sky?

         Who makes the roads for the thunder in the air?

     ²⁶ Who causes rain to fall in the desert,

         in places where no one lives?

     ²⁷ Who sends the rain that gives moisture to barren areas, areas where nothing has grown,

         so that grass begins to grow again?

     ²⁸ Does the rain have a father?

         Does the dew also have a father?

     ²⁹ From whose womb does ice come in the winter?

         Who gives birth to the frost that comes down from the sky?

     ³⁰ In the winter, the water freezes and becomes as hard as a rock,

         and the surface of lakes becomes frozen.

     ³¹ Job, can you fasten the chains that hold the stars together in the cluster of the Pleiades stars?

         Can you unfasten the cords of the stars in Orion? ³² Can you tell the stars and planets when they should shine?

         Can you guide the stars in the groups of the Big Bear and the Little Bear?

     ³³ Do you know the laws that the stars must obey?

         Can you cause those same laws to rule everything here on the earth?

     ³⁴ Can you shout commands up to the clouds and make rain pour down on you?

     ³⁵ Can you cause flashes of lightning to come down and strike where you want them to strike?

         Do those flashes say to you, ‘Where do you want us to strike?’

     ³⁶ Who enables the clouds to know when they should cause rain to fall?

     ³⁷ Who is skilled enough to be able to count the clouds?

         Who can tilt the containers of water in the sky to cause the rain to fall

     ³⁸ so that the dry ground becomes hard

         as the dry clods become wet and stick together?

     ^39-40 When a lioness and her cubs crouch in their dens or hide in a thicket, waiting for some animal to pass by that they can kill,

     can you find animals for the lioness to kill

         so that she and her cubs can eat the meat and not be hungry anymore?

     ⁴¹ Who provides dead animals for the raven,

         when its young are calling out to me for food,

         when they are so weak because of their lack of food that they stagger around in their nests?

Chapter 39

     ¹ “Job, do you know at what time of the year the female mountain goats give birth?

         Have you watched the wild deer while their calves were being born?

     ² Do you know how many months pass from the time they become pregnant until their calves are born?

     ³ When they give birth, they crouch down,

         and then their labor pangs are done.

     ⁴ The young calves grow up in the open fields,

         and then they leave their mothers and do not return to them again.

     ⁵ Who allows the wild donkeys to go wherever they want away from the cities?

     ⁶ I am the one who has freed them and put them in the desert plain,

         in places where grass does not grow.

     ⁷ They do not like the noise in the cities;

         in the desert they do not have to listen to the shouts of those who forced them to work.

     ⁸ They go over the hills to find food;

         there they search for grass to eat.

     ⁹ Will a wild ox agree to work for you?

         Will it allow you to keep it penned up at night in the place where you put feed for your animals?

     ¹⁰ Can you fasten a rope on it

         so that it will plow furrows in your fields, your fields in the valley?

     ¹¹ Since it is very strong, can you for that reason trust it to work for you?

         Can you go away after you tell it what work it should do and assume that it will do that work?

     ¹² Can you rely on it to come back from the field

         bringing your grain to the place where you thresh it?

     ¹³ Think also about the ostriches. They joyfully flap their wings,

         but they have no love for their own young.

     ¹⁴ Ostriches lay their eggs on top of the ground and then walk away,

         leaving the eggs to be warmed in the sand.

     ¹⁵ Ostriches never think about the possibility that some wild animal may step on the eggs and crush them.

     ¹⁶ Ostriches act cruelly toward their chicks;

         they act as though the chicks belonged to some other ostrich.

     They are not concerned if their chicks die,

         that they may have laid their eggs for nothing.

     ¹⁷ That is because I did not allow ostriches to be wise.

         I did not enable them to be intelligent.

     ¹⁸ However, when they get up and begin to run,

         they scornfully laugh at horses with their riders

         because the horses cannot run as fast as the ostriches!

     ¹⁹ Also, think about horses. Job, are you the one who made the horses to be strong?

         Are you the one who put flowing manes on their necks?

     ²⁰ Are you the one who enabled them to leap forward like locusts?

         When they snort, they cause people to be afraid.

     ²¹ They paw the ground, rejoicing because they are very strong,

         as they prepare to rush into battle.

     ²² It is as if they were laughing at the thought of being afraid. They are not afraid of anything!

         They do not run away when the soldiers in the battle are fighting each other with swords.

     ²³ The quivers containing the riders’ arrows rattle against the horses’ sides,

         and the spears and javelins flash in the light of the sun.

     ²⁴ The horses run very quickly, and they speedily cover the ground;

         they rush into battle as soon as the trumpet is blown.

     ²⁵ They neigh joyfully when they hear someone blowing the trumpet.

         They can smell a battle even when they are far away,

         and they understand what it means when the commanders shout their commands to their soldiers.

     ²⁶ Think about big birds. Are you the one who enabled hawks to spread their wings

         and fly to the south for the winter?

     ²⁷ Do eagles fly high up into the cliffs to make their nests

         because you commanded them to do that?

     ²⁸ They live in holes in those cliffs.

         They are safe in those high pointed rocks because no animals can reach them there.

     ²⁹ As they watch carefully from there,

         they see animals far away that they can kill.

     ³⁰ After an eagle kills an animal,

         the baby eagles drink the blood of that animal;

         they gather wherever there are dead people lying on the ground.”

Chapter 40

¹ Then Yahweh said to Job,

     ² “Do you still want to argue with me, the Almighty One?

         Since you criticize me, you should be able to answer my questions!”

³ Then Job replied to Yahweh,

     ⁴ “Now I realize that I am completely worthless. So how could I answer those questions?

         I will put my hand over my mouth and not say anything.

     ⁵ I have already said more than I should have said,

         so now I will say nothing more.”

⁶ Then Yahweh again spoke to Job from inside a powerful storm. He said,

     ⁷ “I want to ask you some questions,

         so act like a man and

         get ready to answer my questions.

     ⁸ Are you going to accuse me and say that I am unjust?

         Are you going to say that what I have done is wrong, in order that you can say that what you have done is right?

     ⁹ Do you have the same amount of power as I do?

         Can your voice sound as loud as thunder, as mine can?

     ¹⁰ If you can do that, then put on the robes

         that show that you are glorious and are greatly honored!

     ¹¹ Show that you are very angry;

         show that you have the right to humble people who are very proud!

     ¹² Humble those proud people just by looking at them angrily!

         Crush wicked people quickly!

     ¹³ Bury them in the ground!

         Send them to the place where dead people are,

         where they will not be able to get out!

     ¹⁴ If you do that, I will congratulate you

         and say that truly you can save yourself by your own ability.

     ¹⁵ Think also about hippopotamuses.

         I made you, and I made them also.

         They eat grass, like oxen do.

     ¹⁶ Their legs are very strong,

         and the muscles of their bellies are very powerful.

     ¹⁷ Their tails are stiff like the branches of a cedar tree.

         The muscles of their thighs are close together.

     ¹⁸ Their thigh bones are like tubes made of bronze,

         and the bones of their legs are like bars made of iron.

     ¹⁹ Hippopotamuses are among the strongest of the animals that I made,

         and I, who created them, am the only one who can kill them.

     ²⁰ On the hills grows food for them to eat

         while many other wild animals play nearby.

     ²¹ They lie down in the water under the lotus plants;

         they hide in tall reeds in the swamps.

     ²² The hippopotamuses find shade under the lotus plants,

         and they are surrounded by willow trees growing in the streams.

     ²³ They are not disturbed by raging, flooding rivers;

         they are not even disturbed when rivers like the Jordan River rush over them.

     ²⁴ No one can catch them with hooks

         or by piercing their noses with the teeth of a trap!

Chapter 41

     ¹ “Think also about crocodiles.

         Can you catch them with a fishhook

         or fasten their jaws with a rope?

     ² Can you put ropes through their noses to control them

         or thrust hooks through their jaws?

     ³ Will they plead with you to act mercifully toward them

         or use sweet talk in order that you will not harm them?

     ⁴ Will they make an agreement with you to work for you,

         to be your slaves as long as they live?

     ⁵ Can you make them into pets like you do birds?

         Can you put a leash around their necks so that your servant girls can play with them?

     ⁶ Will men who partner in selling fish try to sell them in the market?

         Will they cut a crocodile up into pieces and sell the meat?

     ⁷ Can you pierce crocodiles through their hides by throwing fishing spears at them?

         Can you pierce their heads with a harpoon?

     ⁸ If you grab one of them with your hands, it will give you a battle that you will never forget,

         and you will never try to do it again!

     ⁹ It is useless to even hope to subdue them.

         Anyone who tries to subdue one of them will fall to the ground out of fear.

     ¹⁰ No one dares to make a crocodile angry.

         So, since I am much more powerful than they are, who would dare to cause me to be angry?

     ¹¹ Also, everything on the earth is mine.

         Therefore, no one is able to give anything to me and require me to pay money for it!

     ¹² I will tell you about how strong crocodiles’ legs are

         and how strong their well formed bodies are.

     ¹³ Can anyone strip off their hides?

         Can anyone pierce through their double layer of armor?

     ¹⁴ Can anyone pry open their jaws, which have terrible teeth in them?

     ¹⁵ They have rows of scales on their back

         which are as hard as rock.

     ¹⁶ The scales are very close together;

         not even air can get between them.

     ¹⁷ The scales are joined very closely to each other,

         and they cannot be separated.

     ¹⁸ When crocodiles sneeze, the tiny drops of water that come out of their noses sparkle in the sunlight.

         Their eyes are red like the rising sun.

     ¹⁹ It is as though sparks of fire poured out of their mouths.

     ²⁰ Smoke pours out of their nostrils

         as steam comes out of a pot that is put over a very, very hot fire.

     ²¹ Their breath can cause coals to blaze

         and flames to shoot out from their mouths.

     ²² Their necks are very strong;

         wherever they go, they make people very afraid.

     ²³ The folds in their flesh are very close together

         and are very hard.

     ²⁴ They are fearless

         because the inner parts of their bodies are as hard as a rock,

         as hard as the lower millstone on which people grind grain.

     ²⁵ When they rise up, they cause even very strong people to be terrified.

         As a result, people fall back.

     ²⁶ People cannot injure them with swords;

         spears, arrows, or other weapons with sharp points cannot injure them, either.

     ²⁷ They certainly are not afraid of weapons made of straw or rotten wood,

         but they are not even afraid of weapons made of iron or bronze!

     ²⁸ Shooting arrows at them does not cause them to run away.

         Hurling stones at them from a sling is like hurling bits of chaff at them.

     ²⁹ They are not afraid of clubs anymore than they would be afraid of men throwing bits of straw at them,

         and they laugh when they hear a spear coming at them.

     ³⁰ Their bellies are covered with scales that are as sharp as broken pieces of pottery.

         When they drag themselves through the mud,

         their bellies tear up the ground like a plow.

     ³¹ They stir up the water and cause it to foam

         as they churn through it.

     ³² As they go through the water, their wakes glisten.

         People who see it would think that the foam had become white hair.

     ³³ There are no creatures on earth that I have created as fearless as crocodiles.

     ³⁴ They are the proudest of all the creatures;

         they are like kings over all the other wild animals.”

Chapter 42

¹ Then Job replied to Yahweh. He said,

     ² “I know that you can do everything

         and that no one can stop you from doing what you want to do.

     ³ You asked me, ‘Who are you to bring confusion to what I plan to do? You are speaking ignorantly!’

         It is true that I spoke about things that I did not understand,

         things that are very amazing,

         things about which I know nothing.

     ⁴ You said to me, ‘Listen while I talk to you.

         I want to ask you some questions,

         so prepare yourself to answer them.’

     ⁵ I had heard about you previously by rumor,

         but now it is as though I have seen you with my own eyes.

     ⁶ Therefore I am ashamed of what I said,

         and I sit in dust and ashes to show that I am sorry for what I said.”

⁷ After Yahweh said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz, “I am angry with you and your two friends, Bildad and Zophar, because you did not say true things about me, as my servant Job did. ⁸ So now you must take to Job seven young bulls and seven rams and kill them and burn them on the altar as a sacrifice for yourselves. Then Job will pray for you, and I will do what he requests me to do. I will forgive you for speaking wrongly about me. I will not punish you, even though you deserve to be punished, because what you said about me was not right.”

⁹ So Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar did what Yahweh commanded them to do, and Yahweh did what Job requested him to do for the three of them.

¹⁰ After Job prayed for his three friends, Yahweh healed him and caused him to become rich again. Yahweh gave him twice as many things as he had before. ¹¹ Then all his brothers and sisters, and all the people who had known him before, came to his house, and they had a feast together. They consoled him because of all the troubles that Yahweh had allowed to happen to him. Each of them gave Job a piece of silver and a gold ring.

¹² Then Yahweh blessed Job in the second half of his life more than he had blessed him in the first half of his life. He now acquired fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand oxen, and one thousand female donkeys. ¹³ And he also had seven more sons and three more daughters. ¹⁴ He named the first daughter Jemimah, he named the second daughter Keziah, and he named the third daughter Keren Happuch. ¹⁵ In all of the land of Uz, there were no young women who were as beautiful as the daughters of Job, and Job declared that they would inherit some of his possessions, just as their brothers would inherit some.

¹⁶ After that, Job lived 140 more years. Before he died, he saw his great-great-grandchildren. ¹⁷ He was very old when he died.