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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!”

¹Then Job answered and said:

²“How you have helped him who has no power! How you have saved the arm that has no strength!

³How you have counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge!

⁴With whose help have you uttered words, and whose breath has come out from you?

⁵The dead tremble under the waters and their inhabitants.

⁶Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering.

⁷He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing.

⁸He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them.

⁹He covers the face of the full moon and spreads over it his cloud.

¹⁰He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.

¹¹The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at his rebuke.

¹²By his power he stilled the sea; by his understanding he shattered Rahab.

¹³By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.

¹⁴Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?”

¹And Job again took up his discourse, and said:

²“As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,

³as long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,

⁴my lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit.

⁵Far be it from me to say that you are right; till I die I will not put away my integrity from me.

⁶I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days.

⁷“Let my enemy be as the wicked, and let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous.

⁸For what is the hope of the godless when God cuts him off, when God takes away his life?

⁹Will God hear his cry when distress comes upon him?

¹⁰Will he take delight in the Almighty? Will he call upon God at all times?

¹¹I will teach you concerning the hand of God; what is with the Almighty I will not conceal.

¹²Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain?

¹³“This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage that oppressors receive from the Almighty:

¹⁴If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword, and his descendants have not enough bread.

¹⁵Those who survive him the pestilence buries, and his widows do not weep.

¹⁶Though he heap up silver like dust, and pile up clothing like clay,

¹⁷he may pile it up, but the righteous will wear it, and the innocent will divide the silver.

¹⁸He builds his house like a moth's, like a booth that a watchman makes.

¹⁹He goes to bed rich, but will do so no more; he opens his eyes, and his wealth is gone.

²⁰Terrors overtake him like a flood; in the night a whirlwind carries him off.

²¹The east wind lifts him up and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.

²²It hurls at him without pity; he flees from its power in headlong flight.

²³It claps its hands at him and hisses at him from its place.

¹“Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold that they refine.

²Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from the ore.

³Man puts an end to darkness and searches out to the farthest limit the ore in gloom and deep darkness.

⁴He opens shafts in a valley away from where anyone lives; they are forgotten by travelers; they hang in the air, far away from mankind; they swing to and fro.

⁵As for the earth, out of it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire.

⁶Its stones are the place of sapphires, and it has dust of gold.

⁷“That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcon's eye has not seen it.

⁸The proud beasts have not trodden it; the lion has not passed over it.

⁹“Man puts his hand to the flinty rock and overturns mountains by the roots.

¹⁰He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing.

¹¹He dams up the streams so that they do not trickle, and the thing that is hidden he brings out to light.

¹²“But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?

¹³Man does not know its worth, and it is not found in the land of the living.

¹⁴The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’ and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’

¹⁵It cannot be bought for gold, and silver cannot be weighed as its price.

¹⁶It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire.

¹⁷Gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold.

¹⁸No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal; the price of wisdom is above pearls.

¹⁹The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.

²⁰“From where, then, does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding?

²¹It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air.

²²Abaddon and Death say, ‘We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.’

²³“God understands the way to it, and he knows its place.

²⁴For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.

²⁵When he gave to the wind its weight and apportioned the waters by measure,

²⁶when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder,

²⁷then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out.

²⁸And he said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’”

¹And Job again took up his discourse, and said:

²“Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me,

³when his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness,

⁴as I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent,

⁵when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were all around me,

⁶when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!

⁷When I went out to the gate of the city, when I prepared my seat in the square,

⁸the young men saw me and withdrew, and the aged rose and stood;

⁹the princes refrained from talking and laid their hand on their mouth;

¹⁰the voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth.

¹¹When the ear heard, it called me blessed, and when the eye saw, it approved,

¹²because I delivered the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to help him.

¹³The blessing of him who was about to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.

¹⁴I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban.

¹⁵I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame.

¹⁶I was a father to the needy, and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know.

¹⁷I broke the fangs of the unrighteous and made him drop his prey from his teeth.

¹⁸Then I thought, ‘I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand,

¹⁹my roots spread out to the waters, with the dew all night on my branches,

²⁰my glory fresh with me, and my bow ever new in my hand.’

²¹“Men listened to me and waited and kept silence for my counsel.

²²After I spoke they did not speak again, and my word dropped upon them.

²³They waited for me as for the rain, and they opened their mouths as for the spring rain.

²⁴I smiled on them when they had no confidence, and the light of my face they did not cast down.

²⁵I chose their way and sat as chief, and I lived like a king among his troops, like one who comforts mourners.

¹“But now they laugh at me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

²What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone?

³Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;

⁴they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes, and the roots of the broom tree for their food.

⁵They are driven out from human company; they shout after them as after a thief.

⁶In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

⁷Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together.

⁸A senseless, a nameless brood, they have been whipped out of the land.

⁹“And now I have become their song; I am a byword to them.

¹⁰They abhor me; they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.

¹¹Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

¹²On my right hand the rabble rise; they push away my feet; they cast up against me their ways of destruction.

¹³They break up my path; they promote my calamity; they need no one to help them.

¹⁴As through a wide breach they come; amid the crash they roll on.

¹⁵Terrors are turned upon me; my honor is pursued as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.

¹⁶“And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me.

¹⁷The night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

¹⁸With great force my garment is disfigured; it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.

¹⁹God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.

²⁰I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.

²¹You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me.

²²You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.

²³For I know that you will bring me to death and to the house appointed for all living.

²⁴“Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, and in his disaster cry for help?

²⁵Did not I weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?

²⁶But when I hoped for good, evil came, and when I waited for light, darkness came.

²⁷My inward parts are in turmoil and never still; days of affliction come to meet me.

²⁸I go about darkened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

²⁹I am a brother of jackals and a companion of ostriches.

³⁰My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.

³¹My lyre is turned to mourning, and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.