Job 12
Common English Bible
A living joke
12 Job responded:
2 Surely you are the people,
and wisdom will die with you.
3 I am also intelligent;
I’m not inferior to you.
Who isn’t like these people?[a]
4 I’m a joke to friends
who called to God and he answered;
the innocent and blameless one is a joke,
5 a torch[b] of contempt to one who is idle,
a fixed point for slipping feet.
Proverbial wisdom
6 Raiders’ tents are prosperous
and God’s provokers secure,
who carry God in their hands.[c]
7 But ask Behemoth, and he will teach you,
the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
8 or talk to earth, and it will teach you;
the fish of the sea will recount it for you.
9 Among all these, who hasn’t known
that the Lord’s hand did this?
10 In whose grasp is the life of every thing,
the breath of every person?
11 Doesn’t the ear test words
and the palate taste food?
12 “In old age is wisdom;
understanding in a long life.”
God’s majesty
13 With him are wisdom and power;
counsel and understanding are his.
14 If he tears down, it can’t be rebuilt;
if he ties a person up, he can’t be set free.
15 If he restricts water, they have drought;
if he lets it loose, it overturns the land.
16 With him are might and success;
the deceiver and the deceived are his.
17 He leads advisors away barefoot;
makes madmen of judges;
18 unties the belt of kings,
binds a garment around their loins;
19 leads priests away barefoot;
overthrows the well-established;
20 silences the talk of trusted people;
takes away elders’ discernment;
21 pours contempt on royalty;
loosens the belt of the strong;
22 discloses deep secrets of darkness,
makes utter darkness enter the light;
23 makes nations prominent and destroys them,
expands nations and leads them astray;
24 takes away the power to think from earth’s leaders,
making them wander in untraveled wastelands.
25 They feel their way in the dark without light;
he makes them stumble like drunks.
Job 12
Good News Translation
12 1-2 Yes, you are the voice of the people.
When you die, wisdom will die with you.
3 But I have as much sense as you have;
I am in no way inferior to you;
everyone knows all that you have said.
4 Even my friends laugh at me now;
they laugh, although I am righteous and blameless;
but there was a time when God answered my prayers.
5 You have no troubles, and yet you make fun of me;
you hit someone who is about to fall.
6 But thieves and godless people live in peace,
though their only god is their own strength.
7 Even birds and animals have much they could teach you;
8 ask the creatures of earth and sea for their wisdom.
9 All of them know that the Lord's hand made them.
10 It is God who directs the lives of his creatures;
everyone's life is in his power.
11 But just as your tongue enjoys tasting food,
your ears enjoy hearing words.
12-13 Old people have wisdom,
but God has wisdom and power.
Old people have insight;
God has insight and power to act.
14 When God tears down, who can rebuild,
and who can free those God imprisons?
15 Drought comes when God withholds rain;
floods come when he turns water loose.
16 God is strong and always victorious;
both deceived and deceiver are in his power.
17 He takes away the wisdom of rulers
and makes leaders act like fools.
18 He dethrones kings and makes them prisoners;
19 he humbles priests and men of power.
20 He silences those who are trusted,
and takes the wisdom of old people away.
21 He disgraces those in power
and puts an end to the strength of rulers.
22 He sends light to places dark as death.
23 He makes nations strong and great,
but then he defeats and destroys them.
24 He makes their leaders foolish
and lets them wander confused and lost;
25 they grope in the dark and stagger like drunkards.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
