Job 17-20

Complete Jewish Bible

17 “My spirit is broken, my days are quenched,
I am marked for the grave.
² Mockers are all around me;
my eye meets only their hostility.
³ Be my guarantor, yourself!
Who else will put up a pledge for me?
⁴ For you have shut their minds to common sense;
therefore you will not let them triumph.
⁵ Should people share with their friends
when their own children’s eyes are so sad?

⁶ “He has made me a byword among the peoples,
a creature in whose face they spit.
⁷ I am nearly blind with grief,
my limbs reduced to a shadow.
⁸ The upright are perplexed at this,
the innocent aroused against the hypocrites.
⁹ Yet the righteous hold on to their way,
and those with clean hands grow stronger and stronger.

¹⁰ “But as for you all, turn around! Come back! —
yet I won’t find a wise man among you.
¹¹ My days are over, my plans cut off,
which I had cherished so;
¹² but they [try to] turn [my] night into day,
[saying,] ‘Light is near!’ — in the face of darkness.

¹³ “If I hope for Sh’ol to be my house;
if I spread my couch in the dark;
¹⁴ if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
and to worms, ‘You are my mother and sister,’
¹⁵ then where is my hope?
And that hope of mine, who will see it?
¹⁶ Only those who go down with me
to the bars of Sh’ol,
when we rest together in the dust.”

18 Bildad the Shuchi said,

² “When will you put an end to words?
Think about it — then we’ll talk!
³ Why are we thought of as cattle,
stupid in your view?
⁴ You can tear yourself to pieces in your anger,
but the earth won’t be abandoned just for your sake;
not even a rock will be moved from its place.

⁵ “The light of the wicked will flicker and die,
not a spark from his fire will shine,
⁶ the light in his tent is darkened,
the lamp over him will be snuffed out.
⁷ His vigorous stride is shortened,
his own plans make him trip and fall.
⁸ For his own feet plunge him into a net,
he wanders into its meshes.
⁹ A trap grabs him by the heel,
a snare catches hold of him.
¹⁰ A noose is hidden for him in the ground;
pitfalls lie in his path.
¹¹ Terrors overwhelm him on every side
and scatter about his feet.
¹² “Trouble is hungry for him,
calamity ready for his fall;
¹³ disease eats away at his skin;
the first stages of death devour him gradually.
¹⁴ What he relied on will be torn from his tent,
and he will be marched before the king of terrors.

¹⁵ “What isn’t his at all will live in his tent;
sulfur will be scattered on his home.
¹⁶ His roots beneath him will dry up;
above him, his branch will wither.
¹⁷ Memory of him will fade from the land,
while abroad his name will be unknown.
¹⁸ He will be pushed from light into darkness
and driven out of the world.

¹⁹ “Without son or grandson among his people,
no one will remain in his dwellings.
²⁰ Those who come after will be appalled at his fate,
just as those there before were struck with horror.

²¹ “This is how things are in the homes of the wicked,
and this is the place of those who don’t know God.”

19 Then Iyov answered:

² “How long will you go on making me angry,
crushing me with words?
³ You’ve insulted me ten times already;
aren’t you ashamed to treat me so badly?
⁴ Even if it’s true that I made a mistake,
my error stays with me.

⁵ “You may take a superior attitude toward me
and cite my disgrace as proof against me;
⁶ but know that it’s God who has put me in the wrong
and closed his net around me.
⁷ If I cry, ‘Violence!’ no one hears me;
I cry aloud, but there is no justice.

⁸ “He has fenced off my way, so that I can’t pass;
he has covered my paths with darkness.
⁹ He has stripped me of my glory
and removed the crown from my head.
¹⁰ He tears every part of me down — I am gone;
he uproots my hope like a tree.
¹¹ “Inflamed with anger against me,
he counts me as one of his foes.
¹² His troops advance together,
they make their way against me
and encamp around my tent.

¹³ “He has made my brothers keep their distance,
those who know me are wholly estranged from me,
¹⁴ my kinsfolk have failed me,
and my close friends have forgotten me.
¹⁵ Those living in my house consider me a stranger;
my slave-girls too — in their view I’m a foreigner.
¹⁶ I call my servant, and he doesn’t answer,
even if I beg him for a favor!

¹⁷ “My wife can’t stand my breath,
I am loathsome to my own family.
¹⁸ Even young children despise me —
if I stand up, they start jeering at me.
¹⁹ All my intimate friends abhor me,
and those I loved have turned against me.
²⁰ My bones stick to my skin and flesh;
I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

²¹ “Pity me, friends of mine, pity me!
For the hand of God has struck me!
²² Must you pursue me as God does,
never satisfied with my flesh?
²³ I wish my words were written down,
that they were inscribed in a scroll,
²⁴ that, engraved with iron and filled with lead,
they were cut into rock forever!

²⁵ “But I know that my Redeemer lives,
that in the end he will rise on the dust;
²⁶ so that after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then even without my flesh, I will see God.
²⁷ I will see him for myself,
my eyes, not someone else’s, will behold him.
My heart grows weak inside me!

²⁸ “If you say, ‘How will we persecute him?’ —
the root of the matter is found in me.
²⁹ You had best fear the sword,
for anger brings the punishment of the sword,
so that you will know there is judgment!”
20 Tzofar the Na‘amati replied,

² “My thoughts are pressing me to answer;
I feel such an urge to speak!
³ I have heard reproof that outrages me,
but a spirit past my understanding gives me a reply.

⁴ “Don’t you know that ever since time began,
ever since humans were placed on earth,
⁵ that the triumph of the wicked is always short-lived,
and the joy of the ungodly is gone in a moment?
⁶ His pride may mount to the heavens,
his head may touch the clouds;
⁷ but he will vanish completely, like his own dung —
those who used to see him will ask, ‘Where is he?’
⁸ Like a dream he flies off and is not found again;
like a vision in the night he is chased away.
⁹ The eye which once saw him will see him no more,
his place will not behold him again.
¹⁰ His children will have to pay back the poor;
his hands will restore their wealth.
¹¹ His bones may be filled with [the vigor of] his youth,
but it will join him lying in the dust.

¹² “Wickedness may taste sweet in his mouth,
he may savor and roll it around on his tongue,
¹³ he may linger over it and not let it go
but keep it there in his mouth —
¹⁴ yet in his stomach his food goes bad,
it works inside him like snake venom;
¹⁵ the wealth he swallows he vomits back up;
God makes him disgorge it.
¹⁶ He sucks the poison of asps,
the viper’s fangs will kill him.
¹⁷ He will not enjoy the rivers,
the streams flowing with honey and cream.
¹⁸ He will have to give back what he toiled for;
he won’t get to swallow it down —
to the degree that he acquired wealth,
he won’t get to enjoy it.

¹⁹ “For he crushed and abandoned the poor,
seizing houses he did not build,
²⁰ because his appetite would not let him rest,
in his greed he let nothing escape;
²¹ nothing is left that he did not devour;
therefore his well-being will not last.
²² With all needs satisfied, he will be in distress;
the full force of misery will come over him.

²³ “This is what will fill his belly! —
[God] will lay on him all his burning anger
and make it rain over him, into his insides.
²⁴ If he flees from the weapon of iron,
the bow of bronze will pierce him through —
²⁵ he pulls the arrow out of his back,
the shining tip comes out from his innards;
terrors come upon him.

²⁶ “Total darkness is laid up for his treasures,
a fire fanned by no one will consume him,
and calamity awaits what is left in his tent.
²⁷ The heavens will reveal his guilt,
and the earth will rise up against him.
²⁸ The income of his household will be carried off;
his goods will flow away on the day of his wrath.
²⁹ This is God’s reward for the wicked,
the heritage God decrees for him.”