• Job Answers

  • 1 Then Job answered and said,
  • 2 “Truly then you are the people, And with you wisdom will die!
  • 3 “But I 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 laughingstock to my friends, The one who called on God and He answered him; The righteous and blameless 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 tents of the destroyers are complacent, And those who provoke God are secure, Whom God brings into 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 the hand of Yahweh has done this,
  • 10 In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all the flesh of man?
  • 11 “Does not the ear test words, As the palate tastes its food?
  • 12 “Wisdom is with aged men, With long life is discernment.

  • Job Speaks of God’s Strength

  • 13 “With Him are wisdom and might; To Him belong counsel and discernment.
  • 14 “Behold, He pulls down, and it cannot be rebuilt; He closes a man in, and it cannot be opened.
  • 15 “Behold, He restrains the waters, and they dry up; And He sends them out, and they overturn the earth.
  • 16 “With Him are strength and sound wisdom; The misled and the misleader belong to Him.
  • 17 “He makes counselors walk barefoot And makes fools of judges.
  • 18 “He opens the bond of kings And binds their loins with a belt.
  • 19 “He makes priests walk barefoot And subverts the enduring ones.
  • 20 “He removes speech from the faithful And takes away the discerning taste of the elders.
  • 21 “He pours contempt on nobles And loosens the belt of the strong.
  • 22 “He reveals mysteries from the darkness And brings out the shadows of death into light.
  • 23 “He makes the nations great, then makes them perish; He enlarges the nations, then leads them away.
  • 24 “He removes the heart of wisdom from the heads of the earth’s people And makes them wander in a pathless waste.
  • 25 “They grope in darkness with no light, And He makes them wander about like a drunken man.