Job 23

23I still rebel and complain against God;

I can’t hold back my groaning.

³How I wish I knew where to find him,

and knew how to go where he is.

⁴I would state my case before him

and present all the arguments in my favour.

⁵I want to know what he would say

and how he would answer me.

⁶Would God use all his strength against me?

No, he would listen as I spoke.

⁷I am honest; I could reason with God;

he would declare me innocent^w once and for all.

⁸I have searched in the east, but God is not there;

I have not found him when I searched in the west.

⁹God has been at work in the north and the south,

but still I have not seen him.

¹⁰Yet God knows every step I take;

if he tests me, he will find me pure.

¹¹I follow faithfully the road he chooses,

and never wander to either side.

¹²I always do what God commands;

I follow his will, not my own desires.

¹³He never changes. No one can oppose him

or stop him from doing what he wants to do.

¹⁴He will fulfil what he has planned for me;

that plan is just one of the many he has;

¹⁵I tremble with fear before him.

^16–17Almighty God has destroyed my courage.

It is God, not the dark, that makes me afraid—

even though the darkness has made me blind.