Bible in 90 Days Plan

¹“Behold, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it.

²What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you.

³But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God.

⁴As for you, you whitewash with lies; worthless physicians are you all.

⁵Oh that you would keep silent, and it would be your wisdom!

⁶Hear now my argument and listen to the pleadings of my lips.

⁷Will you speak falsely for God and speak deceitfully for him?

⁸Will you show partiality toward him? Will you plead the case for God?

⁹Will it be well with you when he searches you out? Or can you deceive him, as one deceives a man?

¹⁰He will surely rebuke you if in secret you show partiality.

¹¹Will not his majesty terrify you, and the dread of him fall upon you?

¹²Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay.

¹³“Let me have silence, and I will speak, and let come on me what may.

¹⁴Why should I take my flesh in my teeth and put my life in my hand?

¹⁵Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.

¹⁶This will be my salvation, that the godless shall not come before him.

¹⁷Keep listening to my words, and let my declaration be in your ears.

¹⁸Behold, I have prepared my case; I know that I shall be in the right.

¹⁹Who is there who will contend with me? For then I would be silent and die.

²⁰Only grant me two things, then I will not hide myself from your face:

²¹withdraw your hand far from me, and let not dread of you terrify me.

²²Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you reply to me.

²³How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin.

²⁴Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy?

²⁵Will you frighten a driven leaf and pursue dry chaff?

²⁶For you write bitter things against me and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth.

²⁷You put my feet in the stocks and watch all my paths; you set a limit for the soles of my feet.

²⁸Man wastes away like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.

¹“Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble.

²He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not.

³And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you?

⁴Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one.

⁵Since his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass,

⁶look away from him and leave him alone, that he may enjoy, like a hired hand, his day.

⁷“For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.

⁸Though its root grow old in the earth, and its stump die in the soil,

⁹yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant.

¹⁰But a man dies and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is he?

¹¹As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up,

¹²so a man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep.

¹³Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!

¹⁴If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come.

¹⁵You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands.

¹⁶For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin;

¹⁷my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.

¹⁸“But the mountain falls and crumbles away, and the rock is removed from its place;

¹⁹the waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth; so you destroy the hope of man.

²⁰You prevail forever against him, and he passes; you change his countenance, and send him away.

²¹His sons come to honor, and he does not know it; they are brought low, and he perceives it not.

²²He feels only the pain of his own body, and he mourns only for himself.”

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

²“Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind?

³Should he argue in unprofitable talk, or in words with which he can do no good?

⁴But you are doing away with the fear of God and hindering meditation before God.

⁵For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty.

⁶Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips testify against you.

⁷“Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought forth before the hills?

⁸Have you listened in the council of God? And do you limit wisdom to yourself?

⁹What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not clear to us?

¹⁰Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, older than your father.

¹¹Are the comforts of God too small for you, or the word that deals gently with you?

¹²Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash,

¹³that you turn your spirit against God and bring such words out of your mouth?

¹⁴What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?

¹⁵Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight;

¹⁶how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water!

¹⁷“I will show you; hear me, and what I have seen I will declare

¹⁸(what wise men have told, without hiding it from their fathers,

¹⁹to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them).

²⁰The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.

²¹Dreadful sounds are in his ears; in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.

²²He does not believe that he will return out of darkness, and he is marked for the sword.

²³He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;

²⁴distress and anguish terrify him; they prevail against him, like a king ready for battle.

²⁵Because he has stretched out his hand against God and defies the Almighty,

²⁶running stubbornly against him with a thickly bossed shield;

²⁷because he has covered his face with his fat and gathered fat upon his waist

²⁸and has lived in desolate cities, in houses that none should inhabit, which were ready to become heaps of ruins;

²⁹he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure, nor will his possessions spread over the earth;

³⁰he will not depart from darkness; the flame will dry up his shoots, and by the breath of his mouth he will depart.

³¹Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself, for emptiness will be his payment.

³²It will be paid in full before his time, and his branch will not be green.

³³He will shake off his unripe grape like the vine, and cast off his blossom like the olive tree.

³⁴For the company of the godless is barren, and fire consumes the tents of bribery.

³⁵They conceive trouble and give birth to evil, and their womb prepares deceit.”

¹Then Job answered and said:

²“I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all.

³Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴I also could speak as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you and shake my head at you.

⁵I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

⁶“If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?

⁷Surely now God has worn me out; he has made desolate all my company.

⁸And he has shriveled me up, which is a witness against me, and my leanness has risen up against me; it testifies to my face.

⁹He has torn me in his wrath and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.

¹⁰Men have gaped at me with their mouth; they have struck me insolently on the cheek; they mass themselves together against me.

¹¹God gives me up to the ungodly and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, and he broke me apart; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he set me up as his target;

¹³his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare; he pours out my gall on the ground.

¹⁴He breaks me with breach upon breach; he runs upon me like a warrior.

¹⁵I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin and have laid my strength in the dust.

¹⁶My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness,

¹⁷although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry find no resting place.

¹⁹Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who testifies for me is on high.

²⁰My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God,

²¹that he would argue the case of a man with God, as a son of man does with his neighbor.

²²For when a few years have come I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

¹“My spirit is broken; my days are extinct; the graveyard is ready for me.

²Surely there are mockers about me, and my eye dwells on their provocation.

³“Lay down a pledge for me with you; who is there who will put up security for me?

⁴Since you have closed their hearts to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph.

⁵He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property — the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶“He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom men spit.

⁷My eye has grown dim from vexation, and all my members are like a shadow.

⁸The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless.

⁹Yet the righteous holds to his way, and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger.

¹⁰But you, come on again, all of you, and I shall not find a wise man among you.

¹¹My days are past; my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart.

¹²They make night into day: ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’

¹³If I hope for Sheol as my house, if I make my bed in darkness,

¹⁴if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’

¹⁵where then is my hope? Who will see my hope?

¹⁶Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?”

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

²“How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and then we will speak.

³Why are we counted as cattle? Why are we stupid in your sight?

⁴You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you, or the rock be removed out of its place?

⁵“Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out, and the flame of his fire does not shine.

⁶The light is dark in his tent, and his lamp above him is put out.

⁷His strong steps are shortened, and his own schemes throw him down.

⁸For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walks on its mesh.

⁹A trap seizes him by the heel; a snare lays hold of him.

¹⁰A rope is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him in the path.

¹¹Terrors frighten him on every side, and chase him at his heels.

¹²His strength is famished, and calamity is ready for his stumbling.

¹³It consumes the parts of his skin; the firstborn of death consumes his limbs.

¹⁴He is torn from the tent in which he trusted and is brought to the king of terrors.

¹⁵In his tent dwells that which is none of his; sulfur is scattered over his habitation.

¹⁶His roots dry up beneath, and his branches wither above.

¹⁷His memory perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the street.

¹⁸He is thrust from light into darkness, and driven out of the world.

¹⁹He has no posterity or progeny among his people, and no survivor where he used to live.

²⁰They of the west are appalled at his day, and horror seizes them of the east.

²¹Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous, such is the place of him who knows not God.”

¹Then Job answered and said:

²“How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?

³These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?

⁴And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

⁵If indeed you magnify yourselves against me and make my disgrace an argument against me,

⁶know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed his net about me.

⁷Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice.

⁸He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths.

⁹He has stripped from me my glory and taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.

¹¹He has kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary.

¹²His troops come on together; they have cast up their siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.

¹³“He has put my brothers far from me, and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.

¹⁴My relatives have failed me, my close friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

¹⁶I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.

¹⁷My breath is strange to my wife, and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.

¹⁸Even young children despise me; when I rise they talk against me.

¹⁹All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me.

²⁰My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

²¹Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!

²²Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

²³“Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!

²⁵For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

²⁶And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God,

²⁷whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

²⁸If you say, ‘How we will pursue him!’ and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him,’

²⁹be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:

²“Therefore my thoughts answer me, because of my haste within me.

³I hear censure that insults me, and out of my understanding a spirit answers me.

⁴Do you not know this from of old, since man was placed on earth,

⁵that the exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless but for a moment?

⁶Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds,

⁷he will perish forever like his own dung; those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’

⁸He will fly away like a dream and not be found; he will be chased away like a vision of the night.

⁹The eye that saw him will see him no more, nor will his place any more behold him.

¹⁰His children will seek the favor of the poor, and his hands will give back his wealth.

¹¹His bones are full of his youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust.

¹²“Though evil is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue,

¹³though he is loath to let it go and holds it in his mouth,

¹⁴yet his food is turned in his stomach; it is the venom of cobras within him.

¹⁵He swallows down riches and vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly.

¹⁶He will suck the poison of cobras; the tongue of a viper will kill him.

¹⁷He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds.

¹⁸He will give back the fruit of his toil and will not swallow it down; from the profit of his trading he will get no enjoyment.

¹⁹For he has crushed and abandoned the poor; he has seized a house that he did not build.

²⁰“Because he knew no contentment in his belly, he will not let anything in which he delights escape him.

²¹There was nothing left after he had eaten; therefore his prosperity will not endure.

²²In the fullness of his sufficiency he will be in distress; the hand of everyone in misery will come against him.

²³To fill his belly to the full, God will send his burning anger against him and rain it upon him into his body.

²⁴He will flee from an iron weapon; a bronze arrow will strike him through.

²⁵It is drawn forth and comes out of his body; the glittering point comes out of his gallbladder; terrors come upon him.

²⁶Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures; a fire not fanned will devour him; what is left in his tent will be consumed.

²⁷The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him.

²⁸The possessions of his house will be carried away, dragged off in the day of God's wrath.

²⁹This is the wicked man's portion from God, the heritage decreed for him by God.”

¹Then Job answered and said:

²“Keep listening to my words, and let this be your comfort.

³Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.

⁴As for me, is my complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient?

⁵Look at me and be appalled, and lay your hand over your mouth.

⁶When I remember, I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.

⁷Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?

⁸Their offspring are established in their presence, and their descendants before their eyes.

⁹Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them.

¹⁰Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and does not miscarry.

¹¹They send out their little boys like a flock, and their children dance.

¹²They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

¹³They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.

¹⁴They say to God, ‘Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.

¹⁵What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’

¹⁶Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

¹⁷“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God distributes pains in his anger?

¹⁸That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?

¹⁹You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’ Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.

²⁰Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

²¹For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off?

²²Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those who are on high?

²³One dies in his full vigor, being wholly at ease and secure,

²⁴his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist.

²⁵Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity.

²⁶They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.

²⁷“Behold, I know your thoughts and your schemes to wrong me.

²⁸For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’

²⁹Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony

³⁰that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath?

³¹Who declares his way to his face, and who repays him for what he has done?

³²When he is carried to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb.

³³The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all mankind follows after him, and those who go before him are innumerable.

³⁴How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

²“Can a man be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.

³Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are in the right, or is it gain to him if you make your ways blameless?

⁴Is it for your fear of him that he reproves you and enters into judgment with you?

⁵Is not your evil abundant? There is no end to your iniquities.

⁶For you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing and stripped the naked of their clothing.

⁷You have given no water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry.

⁸The man with power possessed the land, and the favored man lived in it.

⁹You have sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless were crushed.

¹⁰Therefore snares are all around you, and sudden terror overwhelms you,

¹¹or darkness, so that you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.

¹²“Is not God high in the heavens? See the highest stars, how lofty they are!

¹³But you say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through the deep darkness?

¹⁴Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the vault of heaven.’

¹⁵Will you keep to the old way that wicked men have trod?

¹⁶They were snatched away before their time; their foundation was washed away.

¹⁷They said to God, ‘Depart from us,’ and ‘What can the Almighty do to us?’

¹⁸Yet he filled their houses with good things — but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

¹⁹The righteous see it and are glad; the innocent one mocks at them,

²⁰saying, ‘Surely our adversaries are cut off, and what they left the fire has consumed.’

²¹“Agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you.

²²Receive instruction from his mouth, and lay up his words in your heart.

²³If you return to the Almighty you will be built up; if you remove injustice far from your tents,

²⁴if you lay gold in the dust, and gold of Ophir among the stones of the torrent-bed,

²⁵then the Almighty will be your gold and your precious silver.

²⁶For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty and lift up your face to God.

²⁷You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you, and you will pay your vows.

²⁸You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you, and light will shine on your ways.

²⁹For when they are humbled you say, ‘It is because of pride’; but he saves the lowly.

³⁰He delivers even the one who is not innocent, who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”

¹Then Job answered and said:

²“Today also my complaint is bitter; my hand is heavy on account of my groaning.

³Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat!

⁴I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments.

⁵I would know what he would answer me and understand what he would say to me.

⁶Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; he would pay attention to me.

⁷There an upright man could argue with him, and I would be acquitted forever by my judge.

⁸“Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him;

⁹on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him.

¹⁰But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.

¹¹My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside.

¹²I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.

¹³But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back? What he desires, that he does.

¹⁴For he will complete what he appoints for me, and many such things are in his mind.

¹⁵Therefore I am terrified at his presence; when I consider, I am in dread of him.

¹⁶God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me;

¹⁷yet I am not silenced because of the darkness, nor because thick darkness covers my face.

¹“Why are not times of judgment kept by the Almighty, and why do those who know him never see his days?

²Some move landmarks; they seize flocks and pasture them.

³They drive away the donkey of the fatherless; they take the widow's ox for a pledge.

⁴They thrust the poor off the road; the poor of the earth all hide themselves.

⁵Behold, like wild donkeys in the desert the poor go out to their toil, seeking game; the wasteland yields food for their children.

⁶They gather their fodder in the field, and they glean the vineyard of the wicked man.

⁷They lie all night naked, without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.

⁸They are wet with the rain of the mountains and cling to the rock for lack of shelter.

⁹(There are those who snatch the fatherless child from the breast, and they take a pledge against the poor.)

¹⁰They go about naked, without clothing; hungry, they carry the sheaves;

¹¹among the olive rows of the wicked they make oil; they tread the winepresses, but suffer thirst.

¹²From out of the city the dying groan, and the soul of the wounded cries for help; yet God charges no one with wrong.

¹³“There are those who rebel against the light, who are not acquainted with its ways, and do not stay in its paths.

¹⁴The murderer rises before it is light, that he may kill the poor and needy, and in the night he is like a thief.

¹⁵The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me’; and he veils his face.

¹⁶In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves up; they do not know the light.

¹⁷For deep darkness is morning to all of them; for they are friends with the terrors of deep darkness.

¹⁸“You say, ‘Swift are they on the face of the waters; their portion is cursed in the land; no treader turns toward their vineyards.

¹⁹Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters; so does Sheol those who have sinned.

²⁰The womb forgets them; the worm finds them sweet; they are no longer remembered, so wickedness is broken like a tree.’

²¹“They wrong the barren, childless woman, and do no good to the widow.

²²Yet God prolongs the life of the mighty by his power; they rise up when they despair of life.

²³He gives them security, and they are supported, and his eyes are upon their ways.

²⁴They are exalted a little while, and then are gone; they are brought low and gathered up like all others; they are cut off like the heads of grain.

²⁵If it is not so, who will prove me a liar and show that there is nothing in what I say?”

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

²“Dominion and fear are with God; he makes peace in his high heaven.

³Is there any number to his armies? Upon whom does his light not arise?

⁴How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure?

⁵Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in his eyes;

⁶how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!”