Job Answers
Then Job answered and said,
2 “Truly then ayou are the people,
And with you wisdom will die!
3 But aI have a heart of wisdom as well as you;
I do not fall short of you.
And who does not know such things as these?
4 I am a alaughingstock to my friends,
The one who called on God and He answered him;
The righteous and bblameless man is a laughingstock.
5 As for upheaval, there is only contempt by the one who acts at ease,
But it is prepared for those whose feet slip.
6 The atents of the destroyers are complacent,
And those who provoke God bare secure,
Whom God brings cinto their power.
7 “But now ask the beasts, and let them instruct you;
And the birds of the sky, and let them tell you.
8 Or muse to the earth, and let it instruct you;
And let the fish of the sea recount it to you.
9 Who among all these does not know
That athe hand of Yahweh has done this,
10 aIn whose hand is the life of every living thing,
And bthe breath of all the flesh of man?
11 Does not athe ear test words,
As the palate tastes its food?
12 Wisdom is with aaged men,
With long life is discernment.
Job Speaks of God’s Strength
13 “With Him are awisdom and amight;
To Him belong counsel and bdiscernment.
14 Behold, He apulls down, and it cannot be rebuilt;
He bcloses a man in, and it cannot be opened.
15 Behold, He arestrains the waters, and they dry up;
And He bsends them out, and they overturn the earth.
16 With Him are strength and sound wisdom;
The amisled and the misleader belong to Him.
17 He makes acounselors walk barefoot
And makes fools of bjudges.
18 He aopens the bond of kings
And binds their loins with a belt.
19 He makes priests walk barefoot
And subverts athe enduring ones.
20 He removes speech from the faithful
And atakes away the discerning taste of the elders.
21 He apours contempt on nobles
And bloosens the belt of the strong.
22 He areveals mysteries from the darkness
And brings out the shadows of death into light.
23 He amakes the nations great, then makes them perish;
He enlarges the nations, then leads them away.
24 He aremoves the heart of wisdom from the heads of the earth’s people
And makes them wander in a pathless waste.
25 They agrope in darkness with no light,
And He makes them bwander about like a drunken man.