Job 24-28 (Amplified Bible)

Job 24

 ¹WHY [seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty] does He not set seasons for judgment? Why do those who know Him see not His days [for punishment of the wicked]?^(A)

    ²Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks and pasture them [appropriating land and flocks openly].

    ³They drive away the donkey of the fatherless; they take the widow's ox for a pledge.

    ⁴They crowd the poor and needy off the road; the poor and meek of the earth all hide themselves.

    ⁵Behold, as wild asses in the desert, [the poor] go forth to their work, seeking diligently for prey and food; the wilderness yields them bread for their children [in roots and herbage].

    ⁶They reap each one his fodder in a field [that is not his own], and they glean the vintage of the wicked man.

    ⁷They lie all night naked, without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.

    ⁸They are wet with the showers of the mountains and cling to the rock for want of shelter.

    ⁹[The violent men whose wickedness seems unnoticed] pluck the fatherless infants from the breast [to sell or make them slaves], and take [the clothing on] the poor for a pledge,

    ¹⁰So that the needy go about naked for lack of clothing, and though hungry, they must carry [but not eat from] the sheaves.

    ¹¹Among the olive rows [of the wicked, the poor] make oil; they tread [the fresh juice of the grape from] the presses, but suffer thirst.

    ¹²From out of the populous city men groan, and the very life of the wounded cries for help; yet God [seemingly] regards not the wrong done them.

    ¹³These wrongdoers are of those who rebel against the light; they know not its ways nor stay in its paths.

    ¹⁴The murderer rises with the light; he kills the poor and the needy, and in the night he becomes as a thief.

    ¹⁵The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me, and he puts a disguise upon his face.

    ¹⁶In the dark, they dig through [the penetrable walls of] houses; by day they shut themselves up; they do not know the sunlight.

    ¹⁷For midnight is morning to all of them; for they are familiar with the terrors of deep darkness.

    ¹⁸[You say] Swiftly such men pass away on the face of the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth; [no treader] turns into their vineyards.

    ¹⁹Drought and heat consume the snow waters; so does Sheol (the place of the dead) those who have sinned.

    ²⁰The womb shall forget him, the worm shall feed sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered, and unrighteousness shall be broken like a tree [which cannot be healed].^(B)

    ²¹[The evil man] preys upon the barren, childless woman and does no good to the widow.

    ²²Yet [God] prolongs the life of the [wicked] mighty by His power; they rise up when they had despaired of life.

    ²³God gives them security, and they rest on it; and His eyes are upon their ways.

    ²⁴They are exalted for a little while, and then are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all others are and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain.

    ²⁵And if this is not so, who will prove me a liar and make my speech worthless?

   

Job 25

 ¹THEN BILDAD the Shuhite answered,

    ²Dominion and fear are with [God]; He makes peace in His high places.

    ³Is there any number to His armies? And upon whom does not His light arise?

    ⁴How then can man be justified and righteous before God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be pure and clean?^(C)

    ⁵Behold, even the moon has no brightness [compared to God's glory] and the stars are not pure in His sight--

    ⁶How much less man, who is a maggot! And a son of man, who is a worm!

   

Job 26

 ¹BUT JOB answered,

    ²How you have helped him who is without power! How you have sustained the arm that is without strength!

    ³How you have counseled him who has no wisdom! And how plentifully you have declared to him sound knowledge!

    ⁴With whose assistance have you uttered these words? And whose spirit [inspired what] came forth from you?

    ⁵The shades of the dead tremble underneath the waters and their inhabitants.

    ⁶Sheol (the place of the dead) is naked before God, and Abaddon (the place of destruction) has no covering [from His eyes].

    ⁷He it is Who spreads out the northern skies over emptiness and ^[a]hangs the earth upon or over nothing.

    ⁸He holds the waters bound in His clouds [which otherwise would spill on earth all at once], and the cloud is not rent under them.

    ⁹He covers the face of His throne and spreads over it His cloud.

    ¹⁰He has placed an enclosing limit [the horizon] upon the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.

    ¹¹The pillars of the heavens tremble and are astonished at His rebuke.

    ¹²He stills or stirs up the sea by His power, and by His understanding He smites proud Rahab.

    ¹³By His breath the heavens are garnished; His hand pierced the [swiftly] fleeing serpent.^(D)

    ¹⁴Yet these are but [a small part of His doings] the outskirts of His ways or the mere fringes of His force, the faintest whisper of His voice! Who dares contemplate or who can understand the thunders of His full, magnificent power?

   

Job 27

 ¹JOB AGAIN took up his discourse and said,

    ²As God lives, Who has taken away my right and denied me justice, and the Almighty, Who has vexed and embittered my life,

    ³As long as my life is still whole within me, and the breath of God is [yet] in my nostrils,

    ⁴My lips shall not speak untruth, nor shall my tongue utter deceit.

    ⁵God forbid that I should justify you--saying you are right [in your accusations against me]; till I die, I will not put away my integrity from me.

    ⁶My uprightness and my right standing with God I hold fast and will not let them go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days and it shall not reproach me as long as I live.

    ⁷Let my enemy be as the wicked, and let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous.

    ⁸For what is the hope of the godless and polluted, even though he has gained [in this world], when God cuts him off and takes away his life?

    ⁹Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him?

    ¹⁰Will he take delight in the Almighty? Will he call upon God at all times?

    ¹¹I will teach you regarding the hand and handiwork of God; that which is with the Almighty [God's actual treatment of the wicked man] will I not conceal.

    ¹²Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain [cherishing foolish notions]?

    ¹³This [which I am about to tell] is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage which oppressors shall receive from the Almighty:

    ¹⁴If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword; and his offspring will not have sufficient bread.

    ¹⁵Those who survive him, [the pestilence] will bury, and [their] widows will make no lamentation.

    ¹⁶Though he heaps up silver like dust and piles up clothing like clay,

    ¹⁷He may prepare it, but the just will wear it, and the innocent will divide the silver.

    ¹⁸He builds his house like a moth or a spider, like a booth which a watchman makes [to last for a season].

    ¹⁹[The wicked] will lie down rich, but does it not again; he opens his eyes, and [his wealth] is gone.

    ²⁰Terrors overtake him like a [suddenly loosened] flood; a windstorm steals him away in the night.

    ²¹The east wind lifts him up, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.

    ²²For [God and the storm] hurl at him without pity and unsparingly [their thunderbolts of wrath]; he flees in haste before His power.

    ²³[God causes] men to clap their hands at him [in malignant joy] and hiss him out of his place.

   

Job 28

 ¹SURELY THERE is a mine for silver, and a place for gold where they refine it.

    ²Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from the stone ore.

    ³Man sets an end to darkness, and he searches out the farthest bounds for the ore buried in gloom and deep darkness.

    ⁴Men break open shafts away from where people sojourn, in places forgotten by [human] foot; and [descend into them], hanging afar from men, they swing or flit to and fro.

    ⁵As for the earth, out of it comes bread, but underneath [its surface, down deep in the mine] there is ^[b]blasting, turning it up as by fire.

    ⁶Its stones are the bed of sapphires; it holds dust of gold [which he wins].

    ⁷That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcon's eye has not seen it.

    ⁸The proud beasts [and their young] have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed over it.

    ⁹Man puts forth his hand upon the flinty rock; he overturns the mountains by the roots.

    ¹⁰He cuts out channels and passages among the rocks; and his eye sees every precious thing.

    ¹¹[Man] binds the streams so that they do not trickle [into the mine], and the thing that is hidden he brings forth to light.

    ¹²But where shall ^[c]Wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?

    ¹³Man knows not the price of it; neither is it found in the land of the living.

    ¹⁴The deep says, [Wisdom] is not in me; and the sea says, It is not with me.

    ¹⁵It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price of it.

    ¹⁶It cannot be valued in [terms of] the gold of Ophir, in the precious onyx or beryl, or the sapphire.

    ¹⁷Gold and glass cannot equal [Wisdom], nor can it be exchanged for jewels or vessels of fine gold.

    ¹⁸No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal; for the possession of Wisdom is even above rubies or pearls.

    ¹⁹The topaz of Ethiopia cannot compare with it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.

    ²⁰From where then does Wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding?

    ²¹It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and knowledge of it is withheld from the birds of the heavens.

    ²²Abaddon (the place of destruction) and Death say, We have [only] heard the report of it with our ears.

    ²³God understands the way [to Wisdom] and He knows the place of it [Wisdom is with God alone].

    ²⁴For He looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.

    ²⁵When He gave to the wind weight or pressure and allotted the waters by measure,

    ²⁶When He made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder,

    ²⁷Then He saw [Wisdom] and declared it; He established it, yes, and searched it out [for His own use, and He alone possesses it].

    ²⁸But to man He said, Behold, the reverential and worshipful fear of the Lord--that is Wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.