¹ Then Job answered, ² “Truly I know that it is so, ³ If he is pleased to contend with him, ⁴ God is wise in heart, and mighty in strength. ⁵ He removes the mountains, and they don’t know it, ⁶ He shakes the earth out of its place.
Its pillars tremble. ⁷ He commands the sun and it doesn’t rise, ⁸ He alone stretches out the heavens, ⁹ He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, ¹⁰ He does great things past finding out;
yes, marvelous things without number. ¹¹ Behold, he goes by me, and I don’t see him. ¹² Behold, he snatches away. ¹³ “God will not withdraw his anger. ¹⁴ How much less will I answer him, ¹⁵ Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn’t answer him. ¹⁶ If I had called, and he had answered me, ¹⁷ For he breaks me with a storm, ¹⁸ He will not allow me to catch my breath, ¹⁹ If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty! ²⁰ Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me.
Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse. ²¹ I am blameless. ²² “It is all the same. ²³ If the scourge kills suddenly, ²⁴ The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. ²⁵ “Now my days are swifter than a runner. ²⁶ They have passed away as the swift ships, ²⁷ If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, ²⁸ I am afraid of all my sorrows. ²⁹ I will be condemned. ³⁰ If I wash myself with snow, ³¹ yet you will plunge me in the ditch.
My own clothes will abhor me. ³² For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, ³³ There is no umpire between us, ³⁴ Let him take his rod away from me.
Let his terror not make me afraid; ³⁵ then I would speak, and not fear him,