Job 8-10
Complete Jewish Bible
8 Bildad the Shuchi spoke next:
2 “How long will you go on talking like this?
What you are saying is raging wind!
3 Does God distort judgment?
Does Shaddai pervert justice?
4 If your children sinned against him,
he left them to be victims of their own offense.
5 “If you will earnestly seek God
and plead for Shaddai’s favor,
6 if you are pure and upright;
then he will rouse himself for you
and fulfill your needs.
7 Then, although your beginnings were small,
your future will be very great indeed.
8 “Ask the older generation,
and consider what their ancestors found out;
9 for we who were born yesterday know nothing,
our days on earth are but a shadow.
10 They will teach you, they will tell you,
they will say what is in their hearts:
11 ‘Can papyrus grow except in a marsh?
Can swamp grass flourish without water?
12 While still green, before being cut down,
it dries up faster than any other plant.
13 Such are the paths of all who forget God;
the hope of a hypocrite will perish —
14 his confidence is mere gossamer,
his trust a spider’s web.
15 He can lean on his house, but it won’t stand;
he can hold on to it, but it won’t last;
16 [for its destruction will come] like the lush growth
of a plant in the sun,
its shoots may spread out all over its garden,
17 but meanwhile its roots cause the stone house
to collapse, as it seizes hold of the rocks;
18 someone who tears it away from its place
denies he has ever seen it.
19 Yes, this is the “joy” of the way [of the godless],
and out of the dust will spring up others [like him].’
20 “Look, God will not reject a blameless man;
nor will he uphold wrongdoers.
21 He will yet fill your mouth with laughter
and your lips with shouts of joy.
22 Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,
and the tent of the wicked will cease to exist.”
9 Then Iyov responded:
2 “Indeed, I know that this is so;
but how can a human win a case against God?
3 Whoever might want to argue with him
could not answer him one [question] in a thousand.
4 His heart is so wise, his strength so great —
who can resist him and succeed?
5 “He moves the mountains, although they don’t know it,
when he overturns them in his anger.
6 He shakes the earth from its place;
its supporting pillars tremble.
7 He commands the sun, and it fails to rise;
he shuts up the stars under his seal.
8 He alone spreads out the sky
and walks on the waves in the sea.
9 He made the Great Bear, Orion, the Pleiades
and the hidden constellations of the south.
10 He does great, unsearchable things,
wonders beyond counting.
11 He can go right by me, and I don’t see him;
he moves past without my being aware of him.
12 If he kills [people], who will ask why?
Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’
13 God will not withdraw his anger —
even Rahav’s supporters submit to him.
14 “How much less can I answer him
and select my arguments against him!
15 Even if I were right, I wouldn’t answer;
I could only ask for mercy from my judge.
16 If I summoned him, and he answered me,
I still can’t believe he would listen to my plea.
17 He could break me with a storm;
he could multiply my wounds for no reason,
18 to the point where I couldn’t even breathe —
with such bitterness he could fill me!
19 If it’s a matter of force, look how mighty he is;
if justice, who can summon him to court?
20 Even if I’m right, my own mouth will condemn me;
if I’m innocent, it would pronounce me guilty.
21 “I am innocent. Don’t I know myself?
But I’ve had enough of this life of mine!
22 So I say it’s all the same —
he destroys innocent and wicked alike.
23 When disaster brings sudden death,
he laughs at the plight of the innocent.
24 The earth has been given to the power of the wicked;
he covers the faces of its judges —
if it isn’t he, then who is it?
25 My days pass on more swiftly than a runner;
they flee without seeing anything good.
26 They skim by like skiffs built of reeds,
like an eagle swooping down on its prey.
27 “If I say, ‘I’ll forget my complaining,
I’ll put off my sad face and be cheerful,’
28 then I’m still afraid of all my pain,
and I know you will not hold me innocent.
29 I will be condemned,
so why waste my efforts?
30 Even if I washed myself in melted snow
and cleansed my hands with lye,
31 you would plunge me into the muddy pit,
till my own clothes would detest me.
32 “For he is not merely human like me;
there is no answer that I could give him
if we were to come together in court.
33 There is no arbitrator between us
who could lay his hand on us both.
34 If he would remove his rod from me
and not let his terrors frighten me,
35 then I would speak without fear of him;
for when I’m alone, I’m not afraid.
10 “I am just worn out.
“By my life [I swear],
I will never abandon my complaint;
I will speak out in my soul’s bitterness.
2 I will say to God, ‘Don’t condemn me!
Tell me why you are contending with me.
3 Do you gain some advantage from oppressing,
from spurning what your own hands made,
from shining on the schemes of the wicked?
4 Do you have eyes of flesh?
Do you see as humans see?
5 Are your days like the days of mortals?
Are your years like human years,
6 that you have to seek my guilt
and search out my sin?
7 You know that I won’t be condemned,
yet no one can rescue me from your power.
8 Your own hands shaped me, they made me;
so why do you turn and destroy me?
9 Please remember that you made me, like clay;
will you return me to dust?
10 Didn’t you pour me out like milk,
then let me thicken like cheese?
11 You clothed me with skin and flesh
you knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 You granted me life and grace;
your careful attention preserved my spirit.
13 “‘Yet you hid these things in your heart;
I know what your secret purpose was —
14 to watch until I would sin
and then not absolve me of my guilt.
15 If I am wicked, woe to me! —
but if righteous, I still don’t dare raise my head,
because I am so filled with shame,
so soaked in my misery.
16 You rise up to hunt me like a lion,
and you keep treating me in such peculiar ways.
17 You keep producing fresh witnesses against me,
your anger against me keeps growing,
your troops assail me, wave after wave.
18 “‘Why did you bring me out of the womb?
I wish I had died there where no eye could see me.
19 I would have been as if I had never existed,
I would have been carried from womb to grave.
20 Aren’t my days few? So stop!
Leave me alone, so I can cheer up a little
21 before I go to the place of no return,
to the land of darkness and death-dark gloom,
22 a land of gloom like darkness itself,
of dense darkness and utter disorder,
where even the light is dark.’”
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.
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