Job 26–27

Chapter 26

Job’s Ninth Speech: A Response to Bildad

Then Job spoke again:

²“How you have helped the powerless!

How you have saved the weak!

³How you have enlightened my stupidity!

What wise advice you have offered!

⁴Where have you gotten all these wise sayings?

Whose spirit speaks through you?

⁵“The dead tremble—

those who live beneath the waters.

⁶The underworld is naked in God’s presence.

The place of destruction is uncovered.

⁷God stretches the northern sky over empty space

and hangs the earth on nothing.

⁸He wraps the rain in his thick clouds,

and the clouds don’t burst with the weight.

⁹He covers the face of the moon,

shrouding it with his clouds.

¹⁰He created the horizon when he separated the waters;

he set the boundary between day and night.

¹¹The foundations of heaven tremble;

they shudder at his rebuke.

¹²By his power the sea grew calm.

By his skill he crushed the great sea monster.

¹³His Spirit made the heavens beautiful,

and his power pierced the gliding serpent.

¹⁴These are just the beginning of all that he does,

merely a whisper of his power.

Who, then, can comprehend the thunder of his power?”

Chapter 27

Job’s Final Speech

Job continued speaking:

²“I vow by the living God, who has taken away my rights,

by the Almighty who has embittered my soul—

³As long as I live,

while I have breath from God,

⁴my lips will speak no evil,

and my tongue will speak no lies.

⁵I will never concede that you are right;

I will defend my integrity until I die.

⁶I will maintain my innocence without wavering.

My conscience is clear for as long as I live.

⁷“May my enemy be punished like the wicked,

my adversary like those who do evil.

⁸For what hope do the godless have when God cuts them off

and takes away their life?

⁹Will God listen to their cry

when trouble comes upon them?

¹⁰Can they take delight in the Almighty?

Can they call to God at any time?

¹¹I will teach you about God’s power.

I will not conceal anything concerning the Almighty.

¹²But you have seen all this,

yet you say all these useless things to me.

¹³“This is what the wicked will receive from God;

this is their inheritance from the Almighty.

¹⁴They may have many children,

but the children will die in war or starve to death.

¹⁵Those who survive will die of a plague,

and not even their widows will mourn them.

¹⁶“Evil people may have piles of money

and may store away mounds of clothing.

¹⁷But the righteous will wear that clothing,

and the innocent will divide that money.

¹⁸The wicked build houses as fragile as a spider’s web,

as flimsy as a shelter made of branches.

¹⁹The wicked go to bed rich

but wake to find that all their wealth is gone.

²⁰Terror overwhelms them like a flood,

and they are blown away in the storms of the night.

²¹The east wind carries them away, and they are gone.

It sweeps them away.

²²It whirls down on them without mercy.

They struggle to flee from its power.

²³But everyone jeers at them

and mocks them.