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Job Chides His Accusers

¹ Then Job responded,

² "No doubt ^(C1)you are the only wise people in the world,
And wisdom will die with you!

³ "But ^(C1)I have intelligence and understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you.
Who does not know such things as these of God's wisdom and might?

⁴ "I am a ^(C1)joke to my friends;
I, one whom God answered when he called upon Him—
A just and ^(C2)blameless man is a joke and laughed to scorn.

⁵ "He who is at ease has contempt for misfortune,
But misfortune is ready and anxiously waiting for those whose feet slip.

⁶ "The ^(C1)tents of the destroyers prosper;
And those who provoke God ^(C2)are apparently secure,
Whom God brings ^(C3)into their power.

⁷ "Now ask the animals, and let them teach you that God does not deal with His creatures according to their character;
And ask the birds of the air, and let them tell you;

⁸ Or speak to the earth with its many forms of life, and it will teach you;
And let the fish of the sea declare this truth to you.

⁹ "Who among all these does not recognize in all these things that good and evil are randomly scattered throughout nature and human life
That the ^(C1)hand of the LORD has done this,

^10 (C1)In whose hand is the life of every living thing,
And ^(C2)the breath of all mankind?

¹¹ "Does ^(C1)the ear not put words to the test,
Just as the palate tastes its food distinguishing between the desirable and the undesirable?

¹² "With the ^(C1)aged you say is wisdom,
And with ^(F1)long life is understanding.

Job Speaks of the Power of God

¹³ "But only with Him are perfect ^(C1)wisdom and ^(C1)might;
He alone has true counsel and ^(C2)understanding.

¹⁴ "Behold, He ^(C1)tears down, and it cannot be rebuilt;
He ^(C2)imprisons a man, and there can be no release.

¹⁵ "Behold, He ^(C1)restrains the waters, and they dry up;
Again, He ^(C2)sends the waters out, and they overwhelm and devastate the earth.

¹⁶ "With Him are might and sound wisdom,
The ^(C1)misled and the misleader are His and in His power.

¹⁷ "He makes great and scheming ^(C1)counselors walk barefoot
And makes fools of ^(C2)judges.

¹⁸ "He ^(C1)loosens the bond of kings
And binds their loins with a loincloth.

¹⁹ "He makes priests walk barefoot,
And ^(C1)He overturns men firmly seated and secure.

²⁰ "He deprives the trusted ones of speech
And ^(C1)takes away the discernment and discretion of the aged.

²¹ "He ^(C1)pours contempt on princes and nobles
And ^(C2)loosens the belt of the strong disabling them.

²² "He ^(C1)uncovers mysteries that are difficult to grasp and understand out of the darkness
And brings black gloom and the shadow of death into light.

²³ "He ^(C1)makes nations great, and He destroys them;
He enlarges nations, and leads them away captive.

²⁴ "He ^(C1)removes intelligence and understanding from the leaders of the people of the earth
And makes them wander and move blindly in a pathless waste.

²⁵ "They ^(C1)grope in darkness without light,
And He makes them ^(C2)stagger like a drunken man."