Beginning
The great wisdom of the ages begins with fearing God. It is the evil of the world that clouds our understanding and leads us into foolishness.
29 Job continued.
2 Job: Ah, that I were as I once was, months ago
during the time when God oversaw me,
3 When His lamp shone above my head,
and by His light, I walked through the darkness.
4 Ah, to be in the ripest time of life once more—
when the intimacies of friendship with God enfolded my tent,
5 When the Highest One[a] was with me
and my children encircled me,
6 When my steps were bathed in milk
and the rock poured out rivers of olive oil, showering my body,
7 When I went up to the gate of the city,
when I took my seat in the town square where the elders meet.
8 There the young saw me and made room for me, in deference to elders.
The old rose and stood out of respect.
9 The leaders stopped talking
with their hands over their mouths.
10 The voices of nobles fell to a hush;
their tongues stuck to the roofs of their mouths.
11 Every ear that heard me blessed me,
and every eye that saw me testified to my greatness.
12 After all, I rescued the poor when they cried out for help
and assisted the orphans when they had no one else.
Great virtue has always begun with the treatment of the poor. Can Job be accused of having a hard heart?
13 The dying spoke their blessings over me,
and the widows sang their joyful songs honoring what I did.
14 I adorned myself in righteousness,
and it covered me;
my justice fit me like a cloak and turban—
conveying both my dignity and my authority.
15 I was the eyes for the blind,
the feet for the lame,
16 A father for the needy,
and I sought for the cause of whom I did not know.
17 I broke out the fangs of the wicked
and wrested prey from their jaws.
18 Then I said, “I will pass from this earth in the comfort of my nest.
My days will be more numerous than a beach’s grains of sand.
19 My roots will grow deep, spreading out to the water’s edge,
and in the night, the dew will come to rest on my branches.
20 Respect will be accorded me every day,
my skill with the bow always new in my hand.”
21 People used to listen to me,
the sense of expectation visible on their faces;
they waited in silence for my advice.
22 And when I finished, they did not hurry to speak again.
They waited while my words dropped like dew upon them.
23 Indeed, they waited for me as one waits for a good rain,
and they opened their mouths as if to catch spring showers on their tongues.
24 I smiled upon them when their confidence flagged,
and they took comfort in my beaming face.[b]
25 I led them in their way.
I sat as their leader.
I lived like a king among his troops.
I was as a happy man spreading comfort among the mourners.
30 Job: But now they mock me,
these young men whose fathers I hold in such contempt.
I wouldn’t trust them with my herds
as I do my dogs.
2 What good does their strength do me?
Their potency has wilted.
3 Gaunt from starvation, haggard from hunger that drives them to gnaw the ground in the night,
a ground all wasted and hollowed-out,
4 They are left with the desperate foods of the famished—
plucking mallow from the bushes by the salt marshes,
and making the ashy broom tree root their staple.
5 The people from the town chase each one out of his neighborhood;
they howl at all of them as if they were common thieves,
6 And push them out to live in the deep valleys of the wadis—
those desert streams that come and go—
So these outcasts seek shelter in the overhangs and crumbling caves
that line the banks of no-man’s-land.
7 Braying like donkeys from the bushes,
huddled together in the prickly undergrowth are
8 Fools and sons of no-names,
driven by lashes out from the bosom of the land.
Even the fools and outcasts use Job’s name as an insult. His character has been brought low by those who should be beneath him.
9 And now they sing of me in taunt and parody,
and make my name a byword among them.
10 They abhor me, keep their distance,
and feel free to spit in my face.
11 Because God has unstrung His bowstring and stricken me with suffering,
they are no longer restrained toward me.
12 To my right, the horde[c] arises.
They seek to knock me off my feet,
piling their disastrous ways against me.
13 They lay waste to my path
and benefit from my destruction,
and no one is there to stop them.
14 As through a wall breached, they advance easily.
Their thunderstorm of wheels rolled across my ruins.
15 Alas! A storm of terrors has turned toward me and is upon me;
my dignity is blown away as by the wind;
my prosperity vanishes like a wispy cloud.
16 And now my own soul is drawn out, poured over me.
The days of misery have taken hold of me;
I am firmly in their grasp.
17 By night, my pain is at work, boring holes in my bones;
it gnaws at me and never lies down to rest.
18 With great force, God wraps around me like my clothing.
He binds tightly about my neck as if He were the collar of my tunic.[d]
19 He has pushed me off into the mud,
and I am reduced from man to dust and ashes.
20 I call out to You, God, but You refuse to answer me.
When I arise, You merely examine me.
21 You have changed.
Now You are cruel to me;
You employ Your strength to attack me.
22 You pull me up into the wind and make me ride upon it
until I am fractured and dissipated in the storm.
23 I know where this ends.
You will send me off to death
and usher me to that meetinghouse where all the living one day go.
24 And yet does not a person trapped in ruins stretch out his hand,
and in this disaster does he not cry out for help?[e]
25 Did I not grieve for the hard days of another
or weep for the pains of the poor?
26 And yet when I longed for the good, evil came;
when I awaited the light, thick darkness arrived instead.
27 I am boiling on the inside,
and it will not quit;
yet the days of misery still come for me.
28 I drift in darkness, the sun absent;
I arise in the assembly
and call out for help.
29 But who will come now that I am roaming the wilderness?
I am a brother to jackals, a friend of ostriches.
30 Despite my earnest cries, my skin burns until it is black and flakes off,
and my bones burn with fever.
31 And so my harp is tuned to the key of mourning,
and my flute is pitched to the sound of weeping.
31 Job: I have made a sacred pledge with my eyes.
How then could I stare at a young woman with desire?
2 And what share has God set aside for us from above?
What is the heritage we can expect from the lofty God, the Highest One?[f]
3 Has it not been made clear these many years?
Is there not supposed to be punishment poured out on the wicked
and disaster on those wrongdoers?
4 Does God not see the paths of my choosing;
does He not count every single step I take?
In this speech, Job is actually recording his deposition; he is calling God to come answer the charges he is laying out. Using a rigid format, Job explains away eight areas of potential sin in his life. So certain is Job that he is innocent of wickedness, he actually pronounces curses upon himself if the all-knowing God finds him guilty of any of the sins. This ethereal courtroom procedure would be like any human going to a court to explain how he did not violate the law of the land and prefacing his testimony with a proposed sentence of the death penalty if the judgment goes against him. Job will soon learn that it is never appropriate to assume he knows more about justice than God, the very author of justice.
Job: 5 If I have walked alongside lies
or if my feet have rushed toward deception,
6 Then let God weigh me on a truly balanced set of scales.
He will know and see my integrity.
7 If my steps have veered off God’s prescribed path
or if my heart has followed any of the evil my eyes have seen
or if my hands are soiled,
8 Then let me sow, but then let another one eat the produce!
Let my sprouts be pulled up by their roots!
9 If my heart has been seduced by another woman
or if I have waited by a friend’s door for a liaison with his wife,
10 Then let my wife be taken by another,
to grind his grain or do whatever he pleases,
And let other men kneel down over her
11 because adultery is such a lewd, scandalous act,
an offense punishable by the court,
12 For it is a fire that burns until the destruction is complete.
Had I done it, it would have undone all that I had gained.
13 If I have refused justice to my servants—either male or female—
when they have had cause for dispute with me,
14 Then what ought I do when God stands to judge me?
How will I answer when He calls me to account for my actions?
15 Did not God, who made me in my mother’s womb, make my servants as well?
Is He not the same One who made us each in our own mother’s womb?
16 If I have stood between the poor and the object of their desire,
if I have caused a widow to lose her love of life,
17 If I have eaten my food alone
and not shared it with the hungry orphan
18 (Indeed, from as far back as I can remember, I have cared for them all—
from my youth, been a father to the orphan;
from my own birth, cared for the widow),
19 If I have idly watched anyone die from exposure simply due to a lack of clothing
or seen the poor without any kind of covering,
20 If ever people in such conditions did not physically bless and thank me
for warming them up with the fleeces of my own sheep,
21 If I ever used my civic strength to condemn the fatherless
simply because I knew I had allies in the courts;
22 Then let my arm be pulled from its socket!
Let my forearm be snapped off at the elbow for raising it against the orphan!
23 See, I have always dreaded the kind of disaster wrought by God;
I was never able to withstand His majesty.
24 If I have put my confidence in my stash of gold,
if I have trusted in a metal so well-refined,
25 If I have exulted in my immense wealth
(for I had accumulated so much),
26 If I saw the sun in its radiant glory
or the moon sliding across the sky in its splendor,
27 If such sights secretly seduced my heart
and made my hand throw kisses to the false gods of sun and moon,
28 Then these things, too, would have been punishable offenses
because they would have shown me untrue to the God above.
29 Have I gloated at my enemy’s downfall
or been excited when he encountered evil?
30 No. I have not permitted my mouth to sin
by uttering a curse against his very life.
31 Have my guests ever left my dwelling saying,
“Anyone still hungry? Who didn’t get enough to eat?”
32 Have I ever left the foreigner to sleep outside?
No. My door was always open to the traveler.
33 If I have covered my sin as people do
or attempted to hide my wrongdoing in the recesses of my heart
34 (Because of my fear of the opinions of the crowd
or my fright at the disdain of my family)
And kept silent hiding indoors away from all possible discovery of flaws;
35 (if only someone were listening!)
Now, here to these oaths, these curses,
I make my signature!
Let the Highest One answer me!
Let my adversary put his case in writing!
36 If He does, I would place it on my shoulder for all to see;
I would put it on my head and wear it like a crown.
37 I would offer Him an account of the steps I’ve taken along my life’s path
and approach Him directly like a prince.
38 If my land cries out against me,
if my furrows gather together to weep over my mistreatment of them,
39 If I have eaten the fruit of the land
without payment to those who tend it
or exasperated the lives of its tenants, the farmers, in pursuit of greater harvest, or in poor management of them;
40 Then let thistles grow instead of wheat
and stinkweed instead of barley.
This concludes the words of Job.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.