Job 27
The Message
No Place to Hide
27 1-6 Having waited for Zophar, Job now resumed his defense:
“God-Alive! He’s denied me justice!
God Almighty! He’s ruined my life!
But for as long as I draw breath,
and for as long as God breathes life into me,
I refuse to say one word that isn’t true.
I refuse to confess to any charge that’s false.
There is no way I’ll ever agree to your accusations.
I’ll not deny my integrity even if it costs me my life.
I’m holding fast to my integrity and not loosening my grip—
and, believe me, I’ll never regret it.
7-10 “Let my enemy be exposed as wicked!
Let my adversary be proven guilty!
What hope do people without God have when life is cut short?
when God puts an end to life?
Do you think God will listen to their cry for help
when disaster hits?
What interest have they ever shown in the Almighty?
Have they ever been known to pray before?
11-12 “I’ve given you a clear account of God in action,
suppressed nothing regarding God Almighty.
The evidence is right before you. You can all see it for yourselves,
so why do you keep talking nonsense?
13-23 “I’ll quote your own words back to you:
“‘This is how God treats the wicked,
this is what evil people can expect from God Almighty:
Their children—all of them—will die violent deaths;
they’ll never have enough bread to put on the table.
They’ll be wiped out by the plague,
and none of the widows will shed a tear when they’re gone.
Even if they make a lot of money
and are resplendent in the latest fashions,
It’s the good who will end up wearing the clothes
and the decent who will divide up the money.
They build elaborate houses
that won’t survive a single winter.
They go to bed wealthy
and wake up poor.
Terrors pour in on them like flash floods—
a tornado snatches them away in the middle of the night,
A cyclone sweeps them up—gone!
Not a trace of them left, not even a footprint.
Catastrophes relentlessly pursue them;
they run this way and that, but there’s no place to hide—
Pummeled by the weather,
blown to smithereens by the storm.’”
Job 27
Revised Geneva Translation
27 Moreover, Job proceeded and continued his parable, saying,
2 “The living God has taken away my judgment. For the Almighty has put my soul in bitterness.
3 “Yet, so long as my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God in my nostrils,
4 “my lips shall surely speak no wickedness. And my tongue shall utter no deceit.
5 “Far be it from me that I should justify you. Until I die, I will never take away my innocence from myself.
6 “I will keep my righteousness and will not forsake it. My heart shall not reprove me of my days.
7 “My enemy shall be as the wicked and he who rises against me as the unrighteous.
8 “For what hope has the hypocrite when he has heaped up riches if God take away his soul?
9 “Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him?
10 “Will he set his delight on the Almighty? Will he call upon God at all times?
11 “I will teach you by the Hand of God. I will not conceal that which is with the Almighty.
12 “Behold, all you yourselves have seen it. Why, then, do you act with such complete frivolity?
13 “This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage that tyrants shall receive from the Almighty.
14 “If his children are in great number, the sword shall destroy them, and his posterity shall not be satisfied with bread.
15 “His remnant shall be buried in death. And his widows shall not weep.
16 “Though he should heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay,
17 “he may prepare it, but the just shall put it on. And the innocent shall divide the silver.
18 “He builds his house as the moth, and as a booth which the watchman makes.
19 “When the rich man sleeps, he shall not be gathered. They opened their eyes, and he was gone.
20 “Terrors shall take him as waters. A tempest shall carry him away by night.
21 “The east wind shall take him away, and he shall depart. And it shall hurl him out of his place
22 “and shall cast upon him and not spare. He flees desperately from its hand.
23 “Men shall clap their hands at him, and hiss at him out of their place.”
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
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