Fortunately, the basic trajectory of the debate is clear: while the friends consistently preserve God’s justice by insisting that Job deserves to suffer as punishment for unconfessed sin, Job accuses God of injustice because God has punished him as a sinner when God knows Job is innocent; at the same time, however, Job refuses to curse God and longs to reconcile with him. Despite this clarity about the general outline of the debate, however, these chapters contain many thorny exegetical, textual