Job 22

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
2 Can a man be profitable to God? Though to himself a wise man be profitable!
3 Is it of advantage to the Almighty if you are just? Or is it a gain to him if you make your ways perfect?
4 Is it because of your piety that he reproves you--that he enters with you into judgment?
5 Is not your wickedness manifold? Are not your iniquities endless?
6 You have unjustly kept your kinsmen's goods in pawn, left them stripped naked of their clothing.
7 To the thirsty you have given no water to drink, and from the hungry you have withheld bread;
8 As if the land belonged to the man of might, and only the privileged were to dwell in it.
9 You have sent widows away empty-handed, and the resources of orphans you have destroyed.
10 Therefore snares are round about you, and a sudden terror causes you dismay,
11 Or darkness, in which you cannot see; a deluge of waters covers you.
12 Does not God, in the heights of the heavens, behold the stars, high though they are?
13 Yet you say, What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness?
14 Clouds hide him so that he cannot see; he walks upon the vault of the heavens!
15 Do you indeed keep to the ancient way trodden by worthless men,
16 Who were snatched away before their time; whose foundations a flood swept away?
17 These men said to God, Depart from us! and, What can the Almighty do to us?
18 (Yet he had filled their houses with good things! But far be from me the mind of the impious!)
19 The just look on and are gladdened, and the innocent deride them:
20 Truly these have been destroyed where they stood, and such as were left, fire has consumed!
21 Come to terms with him to be at peace. In this shall good come to you:
22 Receive instruction from his mouth, and lay up his words in your heart.
23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; if you put iniquity far from your tent,
24 And treat raw gold like dust, and the fine gold of Ophir as pebbles from the brook,
25 Then the Almighty himself shall be your gold and your sparkling silver.
26 For then you shall delight in the Almighty and you shall lift up your face toward God.
27 You shall entreat him and he will hear you, and your vows you shall fulfill.
28 When you make a decision, it shall succeed for you, and upon your ways the light shall shine.
29 For he brings down the pride of the haughty, but the man of humble mien he saves.
30 God delivers him who is innocent; you shall be delivered through cleanness of hands.

Job 23

1 Again Job answered and said:
2 Though I know my complaint is bitter, his hand is heavy upon me in my groanings.
3 Oh, that today I might find him, that I might come to his judgment seat!
4 I would set out my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments;
5 I would learn the words with which he would answer, and understand what he would reply to me.
6 Even should he contend against me with his great power, yet, would that he himself might heed me!
7 There the upright man might reason with him, and I should once and for all preserve my rights.
8 But if I go to the east, he is not there; or to the west, I cannot perceive him;
9 Where the north enfolds him, I behold him not; by the south he is veiled, and I see him not.
10 Yet he knows my way; if he proved me, I should come forth as gold.
11 My foot has always walked in his steps; his way I have kept and have not turned aside.
12 From the commands of his lips I have not departed; the words of his mouth I have treasured in my heart.
13 But he had decided, and who can say him nay? What he desires, that he does.
14 For he will carry out what is appointed for me; and many such things may yet be in his mind.
15 Therefore am I dismayed before him; when I take thought, I fear him.
16 Indeed God has made my courage fail; the Almighty has put me in dismay.
17 Yes, would that I had vanished in darkness, and that thick gloom were before me to conceal me.

Job 24

1 Why are not times set by the Almighty, and why do his friends not see his days?
2 The wicked remove landmarks; they steal away herds and pasture them.
3 The asses of orphans they drive away; they take the widow's ox for a pledge.
4 They force the needy off the road; all the poor of the land are driven into hiding.
5 Like wild asses in the desert, these go forth to their task of seeking food; The steppe provides food for the young among them;
6 they harvest at night in the untilled land.
7 They pass the night naked, without clothing, for they have no covering against the cold;
8 They are drenched with the rain of the mountains, and for want of shelter they cling to the rock.
9 (OMITTED TEXT)
10 (24:11) Between the rows they press out the oil; they glean in the the vineyard of the wicked. They tread the wine presses, yet suffer thirst,
11 (24:10) and famished are those who carry the sheaves.
12 From the dust the dying groan, and the souls of the wounded cry out (yet God does not treat it as unseemly).
13 There are those who are rebels against the light; they know not its ways; they abide not in its paths.
14 When there is no light the murderer rises, to kill the poor and needy.
15 The eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight; he says, No eye will see me. In the night the thief roams about, and he puts a mask over his face;
16 in the dark he breaks into houses. By day they shut themselves in; none of them know the light,
17 for daylight they regard as darkness.
18 Their portion in the land is accursed,
19 (OMITTED TEXT)
20 and wickedness is splintered like wood.
21 (OMITTED TEXT)
22 To him who rises without assurance of his life
23 he gives safety and support. He sustains the mighty by his strength, and his eyes are on their ways.
24 They are exalted for a while, and then they are gone; they are laid low and, like all others, are gathered up; like ears of grain they shrivel.
25 If this be not so, who will confute me, and reduce my argument to nought?

Job 25

1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:
2 Dominion and awesomeness are his who brings about harmony in his heavens.
3 Is there any numbering of his troops? Yet to which of them does not his light extend?
4 How can a man be just in God's sight, or how can any woman's child be innocent?
5 Behold, even the moon is not bright and the stars are not clear in his sight.
6 How much less man, who is but a maggot, the son of man, who is only a worm?

Job 26

1 Then Job spoke again and said:
2 What help you give to the powerless, what strength to the feeble arm!
3 How you counsel, as though he had no wisdom; how profuse is the advice you offer!
4 With whose help have you uttered those words, and whose is the breath that comes forth from you?
5 The shades beneath writhe in terror, the waters, and their inhabitants.
6 Naked before him is the nether world, and Abaddon has no covering.
7 He stretches out the North over empty space, and suspends the earth over nothing at all;
8 He binds up the waters in his clouds, yet the cloud is not rent by their weight;
9 He holds back the appearance of the full moon by spreading his clouds before it.
10 He has marked out a circle on the surface of the deep as the boundary of light and darkness.
11 The pillars of the heavens tremble and are stunned at his thunderous rebuke;
12 By his power he stirs up the sea, and by his might he crushes Rahab;
13 With his angry breath he scatters the waters, and he hurls the lightning against them relentlessly; His hand pierces the fugitive dragon as from his hand it strives to flee.
14 Lo, these are but the outlines of his ways, and how faint is the word we hear!

Job 27

1 (OMITTED TEXT)
2 As God lives, who withholds my deserts, the Almighty, who has made bitter my soul,
3 So long as I still have life in me and the breath of God is in my nostrils,
4 My lips shall not speak falsehood, nor my tongue utter deceit!
5 Far be it from me to account you right; till I die I will not renounce my innocence.
6 My justice I maintain and I will not relinquish it; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days.
7 Let my enemy be as the wicked and my adversary as the unjust!
8 For what can the impious man expect when he is cut off, when God requires his life?
9 Will God then attend to his cry when calamity comes upon him?
10 Will he then delight in the Almighty and call upon him constantly?
11 I will teach you the manner of God's dealings, and the way of the Almighty I will not conceal.
12 Behold, you yourselves have all seen it; why then do you spend yourselves in idle words!
13 This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the inheritance an oppressor receives from the Almighty:
14 Though his children be many, the sword is their destiny. His offspring shall not be filled with bread.
15 His survivors, when they die, shall have no burial, and their widows shall not be mourned.
16 Though he heap up silver like dust and store away mounds of clothing,
17 What he has stored the just man shall wear, and the innocent shall divide the silver.
18 He builds his house as of cobwebs, or like a booth put up by the vine-keeper.
19 He lies down a rich man, one last time; he opens his eyes and nothing remains to him.
20 Terrors rush upon him by day; at night the tempest carries him off.
21 The storm wind seizes him and he disappears; it sweeps him out of his place.
22 (OMITTED TEXT)
23 (OMITTED TEXT)

Job 28

1 There is indeed a mine for silver, and a place for gold which men refine.
2 Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is melted out of stone.
3 He has set a boundary for the darkness; to the farthest confines he penetrates.
4 (OMITTED TEXT)
5 The earth, though out of it comes forth bread, is in fiery upheaval underneath.
6 Its stones are the source of sapphires, and there is gold in its dust.
7 The path to it no bird of prey knows, nor has the hawk's eye seen that path.
8 The proud beasts have not trodden it, nor has the lion gone that way.
9 He sets his hand to the flinty rock, and overturns the mountains at their foundations.
10 He splits channels in the rocks; his eyes behold all that is precious.
11 He probes the wellsprings of the streams, and brings hidden things to light.
12 But whence can wisdom be obtained, and where is the place of understanding?
13 Man knows nothing to equal it, nor is it to be had in the land of the living.
14 The abyss declares, It is not in me; and the sea says, I have it not.
15 Solid gold cannot purchase it, nor can its price be paid with silver.
16 It cannot be bought with gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx or the sapphire.
17 Gold or crystal cannot equal it, nor can golden vessels reach its worth.
18 Neither coral nor jasper should be thought of; it surpasses pearls and
19 9) Arabian topaz.
20 Whence, then, comes wisdom, and where is the place of understanding?
21 It is hid from the eyes of any beast; from the birds of the air it is concealed.
22 Abaddon and Death say, Only by rumor have we heard of it.
23 God knows the way to it; it is he who is familiar with its place.
24 For he beholds the ends of the earth and sees all that is under the heavens.
25 He has weighed out the wind, and fixed the scope of the waters;
26 When he made rules for the rain and a path for the thunderbolts,
27 Then he saw wisdom and appraised it, gave it its setting, knew it through and through.
28 And to man he said: Behold, the fear of the LORD is wisdom; and avoiding evil is understanding.