Job 41–42

Chapter 41

God’s Power Shown in Creatures

¹“¹Can you draw out ^2aLeviathan with a fishhook?

Or press down his tongue with a cord?

²“Can you ^aput a ¹rope in his nose

Or pierce his jaw with a ²hook?

³“Will he make many supplications to you,

Or will he speak to you soft words?

⁴“Will he make a covenant with you?

Will you take him for a servant forever?

⁵“Will you play with him as with a bird,

Or will you bind him for your maidens?

⁶“Will the ¹traders bargain over him?

Will they divide him among the merchants?

⁷“Can you fill his skin with harpoons,

Or his head with fishing spears?

⁸“Lay your hand on him;

Remember the battle; ¹you will not do it again!

⁹“¹Behold, ²your expectation is false;

Will ³you be laid low even at the sight of him?

¹⁰“No one is so fierce that he dares to ^aarouse him;

Who then is he that can stand before Me?

¹¹“Who has ^1agiven to Me that I should repay him?

Whatever is ^bunder the whole heaven is Mine.

¹²“I will not keep silence concerning his limbs,

Or his mighty strength, or his ¹orderly frame.

¹³“Who can ¹strip off his outer armor?

Who can come within his double ²mail?

¹⁴“Who can open the doors of his face?

Around his teeth there is terror.

¹⁵“His ¹strong scales are his pride,

Shut up as with a tight seal.

¹⁶“One is so near to another

That no air can come between them.

¹⁷“They are joined one to another;

They clasp each other and cannot be separated.

¹⁸“His sneezes flash forth light,

And his eyes are like the ^aeyelids of the morning.

¹⁹“Out of his mouth go burning torches;

Sparks of fire leap forth.

²⁰“Out of his nostrils smoke goes forth

As from a boiling pot and burning rushes.

²¹“His breath kindles coals,

And a flame goes forth from his mouth.

²²“In his neck lodges strength,

And dismay leaps before him.

²³“The folds of his flesh are joined together,

Firm on him and immovable.

²⁴“His heart is as hard as a stone,

Even as hard as a lower millstone.

²⁵“When he raises himself up, the ¹mighty fear;

Because of the crashing they are bewildered.

²⁶“The sword that reaches him cannot avail,

Nor the spear, the dart or the javelin.

²⁷“He regards iron as straw,

Bronze as rotten wood.

²⁸“The ¹arrow cannot make him flee;

Slingstones are turned into stubble for him.

²⁹“Clubs are regarded as stubble;

He laughs at the rattling of the javelin.

³⁰“His underparts are like sharp potsherds;

He ¹spreads out like a threshing sledge on the mire.

³¹“He makes the depths boil like a pot;

He makes the sea like a jar of ointment.

³²“Behind him he makes a wake to shine;

One would think the deep to be gray-haired.

³³“^aNothing on ¹earth is like him,

One made without fear.

³⁴“¹He looks on everything that is high;

He is king over all the ^asons of pride.”

Chapter 42

Job’s Confession

¹Then Job answered the Lord and said,

²“I know that ^aYou can do all things,

And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

³‘Who is this that ^ahides counsel without knowledge?’

“Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,

Things ^btoo wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

⁴‘Hear, now, and I will speak;

I will ^aask You, and You instruct me.’

⁵“I have ^aheard of You by the hearing of the ear;

But now my ^beye sees You;

⁶Therefore I retract,

And I repent in dust and ashes.”

God Displeased with Job’s Friends

⁷It came about after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right ^aas My servant Job has.

⁸“Now therefore, take for yourselves ^aseven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a ^bburnt offering for yourselves, and My servant Job will ^cpray for you. ^dFor I will ¹accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.”

⁹So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord told them; and the Lord ¹accepted Job.

God Restores Job’s Fortunes

¹⁰The Lord ^arestored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the Lord increased all that Job had twofold.

¹¹Then all his ^abrothers and all his sisters and all who had known him before came to him, and they ate bread with him in his house; and they ^bconsoled him and comforted him for all the adversities that the Lord had brought on him. And each one gave him one ¹piece of money, and each a ring of gold.

^12aThe Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; ^band he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 female donkeys.

^13aHe had seven sons and three daughters.

¹⁴He named the first Jemimah, and the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch.

¹⁵In all the land no women were found so fair as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers.

¹⁶After this, Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons and his grandsons, four generations.

^17aAnd Job died, an old man and full of days.