Chronological Plan

¹My spirit is broken. My days are extinguished. A graveyard awaits me.

²Surely mockers surround me, and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion.

³Accept my pledge! Put up security for me. Who else will be my sponsor?

⁴You have closed their minds to understanding, therefore you will not honor them.

⁵If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶He has made me an object of scorn to the people; I have become a man people spit at.

⁷My eyes have grown dim from grief, and my whole body has become but a shadow.

⁸The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent are roused against the godless.

⁹Yet the righteous person will hold to his way, and the one whose hands are clean will grow stronger.

¹⁰But come back and try again, all of you. I will not find a wise man among you.

¹¹My days have slipped by; my plans have been ruined, even the things dear to my heart.

¹²They turned night into day and made light seem near in the face of darkness.

¹³If I await Sheol as my home, spread out my bed in darkness,

¹⁴and say to corruption, “You are my father,” and to the maggot, “My mother” or “My sister,”

¹⁵where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me?

¹⁶Will it go down to the gates of Sheol, or will we descend together to the dust?

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:

²How long until you stop talking? Show some sense, and then we can talk.

³Why are we regarded as cattle, as stupid in your sight?

⁴You who tear yourself in anger  — should the earth be abandoned on your account, or a rock be removed from its place?

⁵Yes, the light of the wicked is extinguished; the flame of his fire does not glow.

⁶The light in his tent grows dark, and the lamp beside him is put out.

⁷His powerful stride is shortened, and his own schemes trip him up.

⁸For his own feet lead him into a net, and he strays into its mesh.

⁹A trap catches him by the heel; a noose seizes him.

¹⁰A rope lies hidden for him on the ground, and a snare waits for him along the path.

¹¹Terrors frighten him on every side and harass him at every step.

¹²His strength is depleted; disaster lies ready for him to stumble.

¹³Parts of his skin are eaten away; death’s firstborn consumes his limbs.

¹⁴He is ripped from the security of his tent and marched away to the king of terrors.

¹⁵Nothing he owned remains in his tent. Burning sulfur is scattered over his home.

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

¹⁷All memory of him perishes from the earth; he has no name anywhere.

¹⁸He is driven from light to darkness and chased from the inhabited world.

¹⁹He has no children or descendants among his people, no survivor where he used to live.

²⁰Those in the west are appalled at his fate, while those in the east tremble in horror.

²¹Indeed, such is the dwelling of the unjust man, and this is the place of the one who does not know God.

¹Then Job answered:

²How long will you torment me and crush me with words?

³You have humiliated me ten times now, and you mistreat me without shame.

⁴Even if it is true that I have sinned, my mistake concerns only me.

⁵If you really want to appear superior to me and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,

⁶then understand that it is God who has wronged me and caught me in his net.

⁷I cry out: “Violence!” but get no response; I call for help, but there is no justice.

⁸He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass through; he has veiled my paths with darkness.

⁹He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.

¹⁰He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined. He uproots my hope like a tree.

¹¹His anger burns against me, and he regards me as one of his enemies.

¹²His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and camp around my tent.

¹³He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.

¹⁴My relatives stop coming by, and my close friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵My house guests and female servants regard me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight.

¹⁶I call for my servant, but he does not answer, even if I beg him with my own mouth.

¹⁷My breath is offensive to my wife, and my own family finds me repulsive.

¹⁸Even young boys scorn me. When I stand up, they mock me.

¹⁹All of my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.

²⁰My skin and my flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.

²¹Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for God’s hand has struck me.

²²Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?

²³I wish that my words were written down, that they were recorded on a scroll

²⁴or were inscribed in stone forever by an iron stylus and lead!

²⁵But I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the dust.

²⁶Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh.

²⁷I will see him myself; my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me.

²⁸If you say, “How will we pursue him, since the root of the problem lies with him?”

²⁹then be afraid of the sword, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:

²This is why my unsettling thoughts compel me to answer, because I am upset!

³I have heard a rebuke that insults me, and my understanding makes me reply.

⁴Don’t you know that ever since antiquity, from the time a human was placed on earth,

⁵the joy of the wicked has been brief and the happiness of the godless has lasted only a moment?

⁶Though his arrogance reaches heaven, and his head touches the clouds,

⁷he will vanish forever like his own dung. Those who know him will ask, “Where is he?”

⁸He will fly away like a dream and never be found; he will be chased away like a vision in the night.

⁹The eye that saw him will see him no more, and his household will no longer see him.

¹⁰His children will beg from the poor, for his own hands must give back his wealth.

¹¹His frame may be full of youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in dust.

¹²Though evil tastes sweet in his mouth and he conceals it under his tongue,

¹³though he cherishes it and will not let it go but keeps it in his mouth,

¹⁴yet the food in his stomach turns into cobras’ venom inside him.

¹⁵He swallows wealth but must vomit it up; God will force it from his stomach.

¹⁶He will suck the poison of cobras; a viper’s fangs will kill him.

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

¹⁸He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it; he doesn’t enjoy the profits from his trading.

¹⁹For he oppressed and abandoned the poor; he seized a house he did not build.

²⁰Because his appetite is never satisfied, he does not let anything he desires escape.

²¹Nothing is left for him to consume; therefore, his prosperity will not last.

²²At the height of his success distress will come to him; the full weight of misery will crush him.

²³When he fills his stomach, God will send his burning anger against him, raining it down on him while he is eating.

²⁴If he flees from an iron weapon, an arrow from a bronze bow will pierce him.

²⁵He pulls it out of his back, the flashing tip out of his liver. Terrors come over him.

²⁶Total darkness is reserved for his treasures. A fire unfanned by human hands will consume him; it will feed on what is left in his tent.

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

²⁸The possessions in his house will be removed, flowing away on the day of God’s anger.

²⁹This is the wicked person’s lot from God, the inheritance God ordained for him.