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!

3 How you have enlightened my stupidity!

What wise advice you have offered!

4 Where have you gotten all these wise sayings?

Whose spirit speaks through you?

5 “The dead tremble—

those who live beneath the waters.

6 The underworld* is naked in God’s presence.

The place of destruction* is uncovered.

7 God stretches the northern sky over empty space

and hangs the earth on nothing.

8 He wraps the rain in his thick clouds,

and the clouds don’t burst with the weight.

9 He covers the face of the moon,*

shrouding it with his clouds.

10 He created the horizon when he separated the waters;

he set the boundary between day and night.

11 The foundations of heaven tremble;

they shudder at his rebuke.

12 By his power the sea grew calm.

By his skill he crushed the great sea monster.*

13 His Spirit made the heavens beautiful,

and his power pierced the gliding serpent.

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

merely a whisper of his power.

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