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¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:

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 a mortal be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure?

⁵If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his sight,

⁶how much less a mortal, who is a maggot, and a human being, who is a worm!”

¹Then Job answered:

²“How you have helped one who has no power! How you have assisted the arm that has no strength!

³How you have counseled one who has no wisdom, and given much good advice!

⁴With whose help have you uttered words, and whose spirit has come forth from you?

⁵The shades below tremble, the waters and their inhabitants.

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

⁷He stretches out Zaphon over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing.

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

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

¹⁰He has described 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 struck down Rahab.

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

¹⁴These are indeed 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?”

¹Job 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; until 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“May my enemy be like the wicked, and may my opponent be like the unrighteous.

⁸For what is the hope of the godless when God cuts them off, when God takes away their lives?

⁹Will God hear their cry when trouble comes upon them?

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

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

¹²All of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain?

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

¹⁴If their children are multiplied, it is for the sword; and their offspring have not enough to eat.

¹⁵Those who survive them the pestilence buries, and their widows make no lamentation.

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

¹⁷they may pile it up, but the just will wear it, and the innocent will divide the silver.

¹⁸They build their houses like nests, like booths made by sentinels of the vineyard.

¹⁹They go to bed with wealth, but will do so no more; they open their eyes, and it is gone.

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

²¹The east wind lifts them up and they are gone; it sweeps them out of their place.

²²It hurls at them without pity; they flee from its power in headlong flight.

²³It claps its hands at them, and hisses at them from its place.

¹“Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold to be refined.

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

³Miners put an end to darkness, and search out to the farthest bound the ore in gloom and deep darkness.

⁴They open shafts in a valley away from human habitation; they are forgotten by travelers, they sway suspended, remote from people.

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 its dust contains gold.

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

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

⁹“They put their hand to the flinty rock, and overturn mountains by the roots.

¹⁰They cut out channels in the rocks, and their eyes see every precious thing.

¹¹The sources of the rivers they probe; hidden things they bring to light.

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

¹³Mortals do not know the way to it, 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 gotten for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out 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 chrysolite of Ethiopia cannot compare with it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.

²⁰“Where then does wisdom come from? 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 out the waters by measure;

²⁶when he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the thunderbolt;

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

²⁸And he said to humankind, ‘Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.’”

¹Job again took up his discourse and said:

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

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

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

⁵when the Almighty was still with me, when my children were around me;

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

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

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

⁹the nobles refrained from talking, and laid their hands on their mouths;

¹⁰the voices of princes were hushed, and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths.

¹¹When the ear heard, it commended me, and when the eye saw, it approved;

¹²because I delivered the poor who cried, and the orphan who had no helper.

¹³The blessing of the wretched 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 championed the cause of the stranger.

¹⁷I broke the fangs of the unrighteous, and made them drop their prey from their teeth.

¹⁸Then I thought, ‘I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days like the phoenix;

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

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

²¹“They 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 like dew.

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

²⁴I smiled on them when they had no confidence; and the light of my countenance they did not extinguish.

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 make sport of me, those 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? All their vigor is gone.

³Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry and desolate ground,

⁴they pick mallow and the leaves of bushes, and to warm themselves the roots of broom.

⁵They are driven out from society; people shout after them as after a thief.

⁶In the gullies of wadis they must live, in holes in the ground, and in the rocks.

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

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

⁹“And now they mock me in 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 bowstring and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

¹²On my right hand the rabble rise up; they send me sprawling, and build roads for my ruin.

¹³They break up my path, they promote my calamity; no one restrains 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 violence he seizes my garment; he grasps me by the collar of my tunic.

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

²⁰I cry to you and you do not answer me; I stand, and you merely 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.

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

²⁴“Surely one does not turn against the needy, when in disaster they cry for help.

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

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

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

²⁸I go about in sunless gloom; 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.