Job 9

¹Then Job answered and said:

²“Truly I know that it is so:
But how can a man be in the right before God?

³If one wished to contend with him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand times.

⁴He is wise in heart and mighty in strength
—who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—

⁵he who removes mountains, and they know it not,
when he overturns them in his anger,

⁶who shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble;

⁷who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
who seals up the stars;

⁸who alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the sea;

⁹who made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;

¹⁰who does great things beyond searching out,
and marvelous things beyond number.

¹¹Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not;
he moves on, but I do not perceive him.

¹²Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back?
Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

¹³“God will not turn back his anger;
beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab.

¹⁴ How then can I answer him,
choosing my words with him?

¹⁵ Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him;
I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.

¹⁶If I summoned him and he answered me,
I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.

¹⁷For he crushes me with a tempest
and multiplies my wounds without cause;

¹⁸he will not let me get my breath,
but fills me with bitterness.

¹⁹If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty!
If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?

²⁰Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me;
though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.

²¹I am blameless; I regard not myself;
I loathe my life.

²²It is all one; therefore I say,
‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’

²³When disaster brings sudden death,
he mocks at the calamity of the innocent.

²⁴ The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;
he covers the faces of its judges—
if it is not he, who then is it?

²⁵“My days are swifter than a runner;
they flee away; they see no good.

²⁶They go by like skiffs of reed,
like an eagle swooping on the prey.

²⁷If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,
I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’

²⁸I become afraid of all my suffering,
for I know you will not hold me innocent.

²⁹I shall be condemned;
why then do I labor in vain?

³⁰If I wash myself with snow
and cleanse my hands with lye,

³¹yet you will plunge me into a pit,
and my own clothes will abhor me.

³²For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,
that we should come to trial together.

³³ There is no arbiter between us,
who might lay his hand on us both.

³⁴ Let him take his rod away from me,
and let not dread of him terrify me.

³⁵Then I would speak without fear of him,
for I am not so in myself.

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