Job 7-8
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Job: My Suffering Is without End
7 “Do not human beings have a hard service on earth,
and are not their days like the days of a laborer?(A)
2 Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
and like laborers who look for their wages,(B)
3 so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.(C)
4 When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I rise?’
But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing until dawn.(D)
5 My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
my skin hardens, then breaks out again.
6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle
and come to their end without hope.[a](E)
7 “Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.(F)
8 The eye that beholds me will see me no more;
while your eyes are upon me, I shall be gone.(G)
9 As the cloud fades and vanishes,
so those who go down to Sheol do not come up;(H)
10 they return no more to their houses,
nor do their places know them any more.(I)
11 “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.(J)
12 Am I the Sea or the Dragon
that you set a guard over me?(K)
13 When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,
my couch will ease my complaint,’
14 then you scare me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,(L)
15 so that I would choose strangling
and death rather than this body.
16 I loathe my life; I would not live forever.
Let me alone, for my days are a breath.(M)
17 What are humans, that you make so much of them,
that you set your mind on them,(N)
18 visit them every morning,
test them every moment?
19 Will you not look away from me for a while,
let me alone until I swallow my spittle?
20 If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity?
Why have you made me your target?
Why have I become a burden to you?(O)
21 Why do you not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
you will seek me, but I shall not be.”(P)
Bildad Speaks: Job Should Repent
8 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:
2 “How long will you say these things
and the words of your mouth be a great wind?
3 Does God pervert justice?
Or does the Almighty[b] pervert the right?(Q)
4 If your children sinned against him,
he delivered them into the power of their transgression.(R)
5 If you will seek God
and make supplication to the Almighty,[c](S)
6 if you are pure and upright,
surely then he will rouse himself for you
and restore to you your rightful place.(T)
7 Though your beginning was small,
your latter days will be very great.(U)
8 “For inquire now of bygone generations
and consider what their ancestors have found,(V)
9 for we are but of yesterday, and we know nothing,
for our days on earth are but a shadow.(W)
10 Will they not teach you and tell you
and utter words out of their understanding?
11 “Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh?
Can reeds flourish where there is no water?
12 While yet in flower and not cut down,
they wither before any other plant.(X)
13 Such are the paths of all who forget God;
the hope of the godless shall perish.(Y)
14 Their confidence is gossamer,
a spider’s house their trust.
15 If one leans against its house, it will not stand;
if one lays hold of it, it will not endure.(Z)
16 The wicked thrive[d] before the sun,
and their shoots spread over the garden.(AA)
17 Their roots twine around the stoneheap;
they live among the rocks.[e]
18 If they are destroyed from their place,
then it will deny them, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’(AB)
19 See, these are their happy ways,[f]
and out of the earth still others will spring.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.