Job 12:13-25

The Voice

¹³     With God is the sum total of all wisdom and of all power;
        His is the greatest of plans and the deepest of comprehensions.
¹⁴     So, then, what God tears down cannot be built back up;
        the man He shuts up cannot be released.
¹⁵     If God withholds the rains and stops the streams from flowing, the earth suffers drought;
        if He unleashes too much, the lands are ravaged by flood.
¹⁶     He is strong, and sound wisdom belongs to Him:
        whether one deceives or is deceived, he is under God’s control.
¹⁷     He leads the counselors off as captives, barefoot and stripped;
        He makes a mockery of judges.
¹⁸     He strips off the royal sashes of kings
        and ties them at the waist, making them slaves as well.
¹⁹     He leads the priests away barefoot
        and defeats the long-incumbent men of power.
²⁰     He robs trusted advisors of speech;
        He steals discretion from elders.
²¹     He heaps contempt on rulers,
        and loosens the bind of alliances among world powers.
²²     Aspects of His deep wisdom that were hidden away,
        He shows in plain sight;
        darkness is brought into the light.
²³     He builds the strength of nations, only to crush them—
        increases their population across the earth, only to scatter them again.
²⁴     He divests each nation’s leaders of understanding,
        and causes them to wander aimlessly with nowhere to go,
²⁵     Until finally they grope in the dark, the light having departed,
        and He lets them stumble and stagger like drunks.