Job 7–9

Chapter 7

¹“Has not man a hard service upon earth,

and are not his days like the days of a hireling?

²Like a slave who longs for the shadow,

and like a hireling who looks for his wages,

³so I am allotted months of emptiness,

and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

⁴When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’

But the night is long,

and I am full of tossing till the dawn.

⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;

my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,

and come to their end without hope.

⁷“Remember that my life is a breath;

my eye will never again see good.

⁸The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;

while thy eyes are upon me, I shall be gone.

⁹As the cloud fades and vanishes,

so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;

¹⁰he returns no more to his house,

nor does his place know him any more.

¹¹“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I the sea, or a sea monster,

that thou settest a guard over me?

¹³When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,

my couch will ease my complaint,’

¹⁴then thou dost scare me with dreams

and terrify me with visions,

¹⁵so that I would choose strangling

and death rather than my bones.

¹⁶I loathe my life; I would not live for ever.

Let me alone, for my days are a breath.

¹⁷What is man, that thou dost make so much of him,

and that thou dost set thy mind upon him,

¹⁸dost visit him every morning,

and test him every moment?

¹⁹How long wilt thou not look away from me,

nor let me alone till I swallow my spittle?

²⁰If I sin, what do I do to thee, thou watcher of men?

Why hast thou made me thy mark?

Why have I become a burden to thee?

²¹Why dost thou not pardon my transgression

and take away my iniquity?

For now I shall lie in the earth;

thou wilt seek me, but I shall not be.”

Chapter 8

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:

²“How long will you say these things,

and the words of your mouth be a great wind?

³Does God pervert justice?

Or does the Almighty pervert the right?

⁴If your children have sinned against him,

he has delivered them into the power of their transgression.

⁵If you will seek God

and make supplication to the Almighty,

⁶if you are pure and upright,

surely then he will rouse himself for you

and reward you with a rightful habitation.

⁷And though your beginning was small,

your latter days will be very great.

⁸“For inquire, I pray you, of bygone ages,

and consider what the fathers have found;

⁹for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing,

for our days on earth are a shadow.

¹⁰Will they not teach you, and tell you,

and utter words out of their understanding?

¹¹“Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh?

Can reeds flourish where there is no water?

¹²While yet in flower and not cut down,

they wither before any other plant.

¹³Such are the paths of all who forget God;

the hope of the godless man shall perish.

¹⁴His confidence breaks in sunder,

and his trust is a spider’s web.^o

¹⁵He leans against his house, but it does not stand;

he lays hold of it, but it does not endure.

¹⁶He thrives before the sun,

and his shoots spread over his garden.

¹⁷His roots twine about the stoneheap;

he lives among the rocks.

¹⁸If he is destroyed from his place,

then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’

¹⁹Behold, this is the joy of his way;

and out of the earth others will spring.

²⁰“Behold, God will not reject a blameless man,

nor take the hand of evildoers.

²¹He will yet fill your mouth with laughter,

and your lips with shouting.

²²Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,

and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

Chapter 9

¹Then Job answered:

²“Truly I know that it is so:

But how can a man be just 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;^q

⁹who made the Bear and Orion,

the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;

¹⁰who does great things beyond understanding,

and marvelous things without number.

¹¹Lo, he passes by me, and I see him not;

he moves on, but I do not perceive him.

¹²Behold, he snatches away; who can hinder him?

Who will say to him, ‘What doest thou’?

¹³“God will not turn back his anger;

beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab.

¹⁴How then can I answer him,

choosing my words with him?

¹⁵Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him;

I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.^r

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 him!

If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?^s

²⁰Though I am innocent, 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^t of the innocent.

²⁴The 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 countenance, and be of good cheer,’

²⁸I become afraid of all my suffering,

for I know thou wilt 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 thou wilt 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.

³³There is no^u umpire between us,

who might lay his hand upon us both.

³⁴Let 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.