34
So how can you offer me such futile comfort?
Your answers are deceptive.
Job
Third Series of Speeches
Eliphaz Speaks
22
Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:
2
Can a man be of any use to God?
Can even a wise man be of use to Him?
3
Does it delight the
•Almighty
if you are righteous?
Does He profit if you perfect your behavior?
4
Does He correct you and take you to court
because of your piety?
5
Isn't your wickedness abundant
and aren't your iniquities endless?
6
For you took collateral from your brothers without cause,
stripping off their clothes and leaving them naked.
7
You gave no water to the thirsty
and withheld food from the famished,
8
while the land belonged to a powerful man
and an influential man lived on it.
9
You sent widows away empty-handed,
and the strength of the fatherless was crushed.
10
Therefore snares surround you,
and sudden dread terrifies you,
11
or darkness, so you cannot see,
and a flood of water covers you.
12
Isn't God as high as the heavens?
And look at the highest stars — how lofty they are!
13
Yet you say: “What does God know?
Can He judge through thick darkness?
14
Clouds veil Him so that He cannot see,
as He walks on the circle of the sky.”
15
Will you continue on the ancient path
that wicked men have walked?
16
They were snatched away before their time,
and their foundations were washed away by a river.
17
They were the ones who said to God, “Leave us alone! ”
and “What can the Almighty do to us? ”
18
But it was He who filled their houses with good things.
The counsel of the wicked is far from me!
19
The righteous see this and rejoice;
the innocent mock them, saying,
20
“Surely our opponents are destroyed,
and fire has consumed what they left behind.”
21
Come to terms with God and be at peace;
in this way good will come to you.
22
Receive instruction from His mouth,
and place His sayings in your heart.
23
If you return to the Almighty, you will be renewed.
If you banish injustice from your tent
24
and consign your gold to the dust,
the gold of Ophir to the stones in the
•wadis
,
25
the Almighty will be your gold
and your finest silver.
26
Then you will delight in the Almighty
and lift up your face to God.
27
You will pray to Him, and He will hear you,
and you will fulfill your vows.
28
When you make a decision, it will be carried out,
and light will shine on your ways.
29
When others are humiliated and you say, “Lift them up,”
God will save the humble.
30
He will even rescue the
•guilty
one,
who will be rescued by the purity of your hands.
Job
Job's Reply to Eliphaz
23
Then Job answered:
2
Today also my complaint is bitter.
His hand is heavy despite my groaning.
3
If only I knew how to find Him,
so that I could go to His throne.
4
I would plead my case before Him
and fill my mouth with arguments.
5
I would learn how He would answer me;
and understand what He would say to me.
6
Would He prosecute me forcefully?
No, He will certainly pay attention to me.
7
Then an upright man could reason with Him,
and I would escape from my Judge forever.
8
If I go east, He is not there,
and if I go west, I cannot perceive Him.
9
When He is at work to the north, I cannot see Him;
when He turns south, I cannot find Him.
10
Yet He knows the way I have taken;
when He has tested me, I will emerge as pure gold.
11
My feet have followed in His tracks;
I have kept to His way and not turned aside.
12
I have not departed from the commands of His lips;
I have treasured the words of His mouth
more than my daily food.
13
But He is unchangeable; who can oppose Him?
He does what He desires.
14
He will certainly accomplish what He has decreed for me,
and He has many more things like these in mind.
15
Therefore I am terrified in His presence;
when I consider this, I am afraid of Him.
16
God has made my heart faint;
the
•Almighty
has terrified me.
17
Yet I am not destroyed by the darkness,
by the thick darkness that covers my face.
Job
24
Why does the
•Almighty
not reserve times for judgment?
Why do those who know Him never see His days?
2
The wicked displace boundary markers.
They steal a flock and provide pasture for it.
3
They drive away the donkeys owned by the fatherless
and take the widow's ox as collateral.
4
They push the needy off the road;
the poor of the land are forced into hiding.
5
Like wild donkeys in the desert,
the poor go out to their task of foraging for food;
the wilderness provides nourishment for their children.
6
They gather their fodder in the field
and glean the vineyards of the wicked.
7
Without clothing, they spend the night naked,
having no covering against the cold.
8
Drenched by mountain rains,
they huddle against the rocks, shelterless.
9
The fatherless infant is snatched from the breast;
the nursing child of the poor is seized as collateral.
10
Without clothing, they wander about naked.
They carry sheaves but go hungry.
11
They crush olives in their presses;
they tread the winepresses, but go thirsty.
12
From the city, men groan;
the mortally wounded cry for help,
yet God pays no attention to this crime.
13
The wicked are those who rebel against the light.
They do not recognize its ways
or stay on its paths.
14
The murderer rises at dawn
to kill the poor and needy,
and by night he becomes a thief.
15
The adulterer's eye watches for twilight,
thinking: No eye will see me;
he covers his face.
16
In the dark they break into houses;
by day they lock themselves in,
never experiencing the light.
17
For the morning is like darkness to them.
Surely they are familiar with the terrors of darkness!
18
They float on the surface of the water.
Their section of the land is cursed,
so that they never go to their vineyards.
19
As dry ground and heat snatch away the melted snow,
so
•Sheol
steals those who have sinned.
20
The womb forgets them;
worms feed on them;
they are remembered no more.
So injustice is broken like a tree.
21
They prey on the childless woman who is unable to conceive,
and do not deal kindly with the widow.
22
Yet God drags away the mighty by His power;
when He rises up, they have no assurance of life.
23
He gives them a sense of security, so they can rely on it,
but His eyes watch over their ways.
24
They are exalted for a moment, then they are gone;
they are brought low and shrivel up like everything else.
They wither like heads of grain.
25
If this is not true, then who can prove me a liar
and show that my speech is worthless?
Job
Bildad Speaks
25
Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:
2
Dominion and dread belong to Him,
the One who establishes harmony in the heavens.
3
Can His troops be numbered?
Does His light not shine on everyone?
4
How can a person be justified before God?
How can one born of woman be pure?
5
If even the moon does not shine
and the stars are not pure in His sight,
6
how much less man, who is a maggot,
and the son of man, who is a worm!
Job
Job's Reply to Bildad
26
Then Job answered:
2
How you have helped the powerless
and delivered the arm that is weak!
3
How you have counseled the unwise
and thoroughly explained the path to success!
4
Who did you speak these words to?
Whose breath came out of your mouth?
5
The departed spirits tremble
beneath the waters and all that inhabit them.
6
•Sheol
is naked before God,
and
•Abaddon
has no covering.
7
He stretches the northern skies over empty space;
He hangs the earth on nothing.
8
He wraps up the waters in His clouds,
yet the clouds do not burst beneath their weight.
9
He obscures the view of His throne,
spreading His cloud over it.
10
He laid out the horizon on the surface of the waters
at the boundary between light and darkness.
11
The pillars that hold up the sky tremble,
astounded at His rebuke.
12
By His power He stirred the sea,
and by His understanding He crushed
•Rahab
.
13
By His breath the heavens gained their beauty;
His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
14
These are but the fringes of His ways;
how faint is the word we hear of Him!
Who can understand His mighty thunder?
Job
27
Job continued his discourse, saying:
2
As God lives, who has deprived me of justice,
and the
•Almighty
who has made me bitter,
3
as long as my breath is still in me
and the breath from God remains in my nostrils,
4
my lips will not speak unjustly,
and my tongue will not utter deceit.
5
I will never affirm that you are right.
I will maintain my integrity until I die.
6
I will cling to my righteousness and never let it go.
My conscience will not accuse me as long as I live!
7
May my enemy be like the wicked
and my opponent like the unjust.
8
For what hope does the godless man have when he is cut off,
when God takes away his life?
9
Will God hear his cry
when distress comes on him?
10
Will he delight in the Almighty?
Will he call on God at all times?
11
I will teach you about God's power.
I will not conceal what the Almighty has planned.
12
All of you have seen this for yourselves,
why do you keep up this empty talk?
13
This is a wicked man's lot from God,
the inheritance the ruthless receive from the Almighty.
14
Even if his children increase, they are destined for the sword;
his descendants will never have enough food.
15
Those who survive him will be buried by the plague,
yet their widows will not weep for them.
16
Though he piles up silver like dust
and heaps up a wardrobe like clay —
17
he may heap it up, but the righteous will wear it,
and the innocent will divide up his silver.
18
The house he built is like a moth's cocoon
or a booth set up by a watchman.
19
He lies down wealthy, but will do so no more;
when he opens his eyes, it is gone.
20
Terrors overtake him like a flood;
a storm wind sweeps him away at night.
21
An east wind picks him up, and he is gone;
it carries him away from his place.
22
It blasts at him without mercy,
while he flees desperately from its grasp.
23
It claps its hands at him
and scorns him from its place.