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¹ Then Job answered and said, ² I know of a truth that it is so: for how shall a mortal man be just before the Lord? ³ For if he would enter into judgment with him, God would not hearken to him, so that he should answer to one of his charges of a thousand. ⁴ For he is wise in mind, and mighty, and great: who has hardened himself against him and endured? ⁵ Who wears out the mountains, and men know it not: who overturns them in anger. ⁶ Who shakes the earth under heaven from its foundations, and its pillars totter. ⁷ Who commands the sun, and it rises not; and he seals up the stars. ⁸ Who alone has stretched out the heavens, and walks on the sea as on firm ground. ⁹ Who makes Pleias, and Hesperus, and Arcturus, and the chambers of the south. ¹⁰ Who does great and unsearchable things; glorious also and excellent things, innumerable. ¹¹ If ever he should go beyond me, I shall not see him: if he should pass by me, neither thus have I known it. ¹² If he would take away, who shall turn him back? or who shall say to him, What hast thou done? ¹³ For if he has turned away his anger, the whales under heaven have stooped under him.

¹⁴ Oh then that he would hearken to me, or judge my cause. ¹⁵ For though I be righteous, he will not hearken to me: I will intreat his judgment. ¹⁶ And if I should call and he should not hearken, I cannot believe that he has listened to my voice. ¹⁷ Let him not crush me with a dark storm: but he has made by bruises many without cause. ¹⁸ For he suffers me not to take breath, but he has filled me with bitterness. ¹⁹ For indeed he is strong in power: who then shall resist his judgment? ²⁰ For though I should seem righteous, my mouth will be profane: and though I should seem blameless, I shall be proved perverse. ²¹ For even if I have sinned, I know it not in my soul: but my life is taken away.

²² Wherefore I said, Wrath slays the great and mighty man. ²³ For the worthless die, but the righteous are laughed to scorn. ²⁴ For they are delivered into the hands of the unrighteous man: he covers the faces of the judges of the earth: but if it be not he, who is it?

²⁵ But my life is swifter than a post: my days have fled away, and they knew it not. ²⁶ Or again, is there a trace of their path left by ships? or is there one of the flying eagle as it seeks its prey? ²⁷ And if I should say, I will forget to speak, I will bow down my face and groan; ²⁸ I quake in all my limbs, for I know that thou wilt not leave me alone as innocent. ²⁹ But since I am ungodly, why have I not died? ³⁰ For if I should wash myself with snow, and purge myself with pure hands, ³¹ thou hadst thoroughly plunged me in filth, and my garment had abhorred me. ³² For thou art not man like me, with whom I could contend, that we might come together to judgment. ³³ Would that he our mediator were present, and a reprover, and one who should hear the cause between both. ³⁴ Let him remove his rod from me, and let not his fear terrify me: ³⁵ so shall I not be afraid, but I will speak: for I am not thus conscious of guilt.