Beginning

24 “Why doesn’t God open the court and listen to my case? Why must the godly wait for him in vain? ² For a crime wave has engulfed us—landmarks are moved, flocks of sheep are stolen, ³ and even the donkeys of the poor and fatherless are taken. Poor widows must surrender the little they have as a pledge to get a loan. ⁴ The needy are kicked aside; they must get out of the way. ⁵ Like the wild donkeys in the desert, the poor must spend all their time just getting barely enough to keep soul and body together. They are sent into the desert to search for food for their children. ⁶ They eat what they find that grows wild and must even glean the vineyards of the wicked. ⁷ All night they lie naked in the cold, without clothing or covering. ⁸ They are wet with the showers of the mountains and live in caves for want of a home.

⁹ “The wicked snatch fatherless children from their mother’s breasts, and take a poor man’s baby as a pledge before they will loan him any money or grain. ¹⁰ That is why they must go about naked, without clothing, and are forced to carry food while they are starving. ¹¹ They are forced to press out the olive oil without tasting it and to tread out the grape juice as they suffer from thirst. ¹² The bones of the dying cry from the city; the wounded cry for help; yet God does not respond to their moaning.

¹³ “The wicked rebel against the light and are not acquainted with the right and the good. ^14-15 They are murderers who rise in the early dawn to kill the poor and needy; at night they are thieves and adulterers, waiting for the twilight ‘when no one will see me,’ they say. They mask their faces so no one will know them. ¹⁶ They break into houses at night and sleep in the daytime—they are not acquainted with the light. ¹⁷ The black night is their morning; they ally themselves with the terrors of the darkness.

¹⁸ “But how quickly they disappear from the face of the earth. Everything they own is cursed. They leave no property for their children. ¹⁹ Death consumes sinners as drought and heat consume snow. ²⁰ Even the sinner’s own mother shall forget him. Worms shall feed sweetly on him. No one will remember him anymore. For wicked men are broken like a tree in the storm. ²¹ For they have taken advantage of the childless who have no protecting sons. They refuse to help the needy widows.

^22-23 “Yet sometimes^[a] it seems as though God preserves the rich by his power and restores them to life when anyone else would die. God gives them confidence and strength, and helps them in many ways. ²⁴ But though they are very great now, yet in a moment they shall be gone like all others, cut off like heads of grain. ²⁵ Can anyone claim otherwise? Who can prove me a liar and claim that I am wrong?”

25 The further reply of Bildad the Shuhite:

² “God is powerful and dreadful. He enforces peace in heaven. ³ Who is able to number his hosts of angels? And his light shines down on all the earth. ⁴ How can mere man stand before God and claim to be righteous? Who in all the earth can boast that he is clean? ⁵ God is so glorious that even the moon and stars are less than nothing as compared to him. ⁶ How much less is man, who is but a worm in his sight?”

26 Job’s reply:

² “What wonderful helpers you all are! And how you have encouraged me in my great need! ³ How you have enlightened my stupidity! What wise things you have said! ⁴ How did you ever think of all these brilliant comments?

^5-6 “The dead stand naked, trembling before God in the place where they go. ⁷ God stretches out heaven over empty space and hangs the earth upon nothing. ⁸ He wraps the rain in his thick clouds, and the clouds are not split by the weight. ⁹ He shrouds his throne with his clouds. ¹⁰ He sets a boundary for the ocean, yes, and a boundary for the day and for the night. ¹¹ The pillars of heaven tremble at his rebuke. ¹² And by his power the sea grows calm; he is skilled at crushing its pride! ¹³ The heavens are made beautiful by his Spirit;^[b] he pierces the swiftly gliding serpent.

¹⁴ “These are some of the minor things he does, merely a whisper of his power. Who then can withstand his thunder?”

27 Job’s final defense:

² “I vow by the living God, who has taken away my rights, even the Almighty God who has embittered my soul, ³ that as long as I live, while I have breath from God, ⁴ my lips shall speak no evil, my tongue shall speak no lies. ⁵ I will never, never agree that you are right; until I die I will vow my innocence. ⁶ I am not a sinner—I repeat it again and again. My conscience is clear for as long as I live. ⁷ Those who declare otherwise are my wicked enemies. They are evil men.

⁸ “But what hope has the godless when God cuts him off and takes away his life? ⁹ Will God listen to his cry when trouble comes upon him? ¹⁰ For he does not delight himself in the Almighty or pay any attention to God except in times of crisis.

¹¹ “I will teach you about God— ¹² but really, I don’t need to, for you yourselves know as much about him as I do; yet you are saying all these useless things to me.

¹³ “This is the fate awaiting the wicked from the hand of the Almighty: ¹⁴ If he has a multitude of children, it is so that they will die in war or starve to death. ¹⁵ Those who survive shall be brought down to the grave by disease and plague, with no one to mourn them, not even their wives.

¹⁶ “The evil man may accumulate money like dust, with closets jammed full of clothing— ¹⁷ yes, he may order them made by his tailor, but the innocent shall wear that clothing and shall divide his silver among them. ¹⁸ Every house built by the wicked is as fragile as a spider web, as full of cracks as a leafy booth!

¹⁹ “He goes to bed rich but wakes up to find that all his wealth is gone. ²⁰ Terror overwhelms him, and he is blown away in the storms of the night. ²¹ The east wind carries him away, and he is gone. It sweeps him into eternity. ²² For God shall hurl at him unsparingly. He longs to flee from God. ²³ Everyone will cheer at his death and boo him into eternity.

28 “Men know how to mine silver and refine gold, ² to dig iron from the earth and melt copper from stone. ^3-4 Men know how to put light into darkness so that a mine shaft can be sunk into the earth, and the earth searched and its deep secrets explored. Into the black rock, shadowed by death, men descend on ropes, swinging back and forth.

⁵ “Men know how to obtain food from the surface of the earth, while underneath there is fire.

⁶ “They know how to find sapphires and gold dust— ⁷ treasures that no bird of prey can see, no eagle’s eye observe— ⁸ for they are deep within the mines. No wild animal has ever walked upon those treasures; no lion has set his paw there. ⁹ Men know how to tear apart flinty rocks and how to overturn the roots of mountains. ¹⁰ They drill tunnels in the rocks and lay bare precious stones. ¹¹ They dam up streams of water and pan the gold.^[c]

¹² “But though men can do all these things, they don’t know where to find wisdom and understanding. ¹³ They not only don’t know how to get it, but, in fact, it is not to be found among the living.

¹⁴ “‘It’s not here,’ the oceans say; and the seas reply, ‘Nor is it here.’

¹⁵ “It cannot be bought for gold or silver, ¹⁶ nor for all the gold of Ophir or precious onyx stones or sapphires. ¹⁷ Wisdom is far more valuable than gold and glass. It cannot be bought for jewels mounted in fine gold. ¹⁸ Coral or crystal is worthless in trying to get it; its price is far above rubies. ¹⁹ Topaz from Ethiopia cannot purchase it, nor even the purest gold.

²⁰ “Then where can we get it? Where can it be found? ²¹ For it is hid from the eyes of all mankind; even the sharp-eyed birds in the sky cannot discover it.

²² “But Destruction and Death speak of knowing something about it! ^23-24 And God surely knows where it is to be found, for he looks throughout the whole earth, under all the heavens. ²⁵ He makes the winds blow and sets the boundaries of the oceans. ²⁶ He makes the laws of the rain and a path for the lightning. ²⁷ He knows where wisdom is and declares it to all who will listen. He established it and examined it thoroughly. ²⁸ And this is what he says to all mankind: ‘Look, to fear the Lord is true wisdom; to forsake evil is real understanding.’”