Job Replies: The Lord Has Done This

¹Then Job answered and said:

²“No doubt you are the people,

and wisdom will die with you.

³But I have bunderstanding as well as you;

I am not inferior to you.

Who does not know csuch things as these?

⁴I am da laughingstock to my friends;

I, who ecalled to God and he answered me,

a just and blameless man, am a laughingstock.

⁵In the thought of one who is fat ease there is contempt for misfortune;

it is ready for those whose feet slip.

⁶gThe tents of robbers are at peace,

and those who provoke God are secure,

who bring their god in their hand.1

⁷“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;

the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you;

⁸or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you;2

and the fish of the sea will declare to you.

⁹Who among all these does not know

that hthe hand of the Lord has done this?

¹⁰In ihis hand is the life of every living thing

and the breath of all mankind.

¹¹Does not jthe ear test words

as the palate tastes food?

¹²Wisdom is with kthe aged,

and understanding in length of days.

¹³l“With God3 are wisdom and might;

he has counsel and understanding.

¹⁴If he tears down, none can rebuild;

if he mshuts a man in, none can open.

¹⁵If he nwithholds the waters, they dry up;

if he osends them out, they overwhelm the land.

¹⁶With him are strength and psound wisdom;

the deceived and the deceiver are his.

¹⁷He leads qcounselors away stripped,

and rjudges he makes fools.

¹⁸He slooses the bonds of kings

and binds a waistcloth on their hips.

¹⁹He leads priests away stripped

and overthrows the mighty.

²⁰He deprives of speech those who are trusted

tand takes away the discernment of the elders.

²¹He upours contempt on princes

and loosens the belt of the strong.

²²He vuncovers the deeps out of darkness

and brings wdeep darkness to light.

²³He xmakes nations great, and he destroys them;

he enlarges nations, and yleads them away.

²⁴He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth

and zmakes them wander in a trackless waste.

²⁵They agrope in the dark without light,

and he makes them bstagger like a drunken man.