Chapter 23
1Then Job answered: 2“Even today my complaint is bitter. His hand is heavy despite my groaning. 3If only I knew where to find Him, so that I could go to His seat. 4I would plead my case before Him and fill my mouth with arguments. 5I would learn how He would answer, and consider what He would say. 6Would He contend with me in His great power? No, He would certainly take note of me. 7Then an upright man could reason with Him, and I would be delivered forever from my Judge. 8If I go east, He is not there, and if I go west, I cannot find Him. 9When He is at work in the north, I cannot behold Him; when He turns to the south, I cannot see Him. 10Yet He knows the way I have taken; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold. 11My feet have followed in His tracks; I have kept His way without turning aside. 12I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread. 13But He is unchangeable, and who can oppose Him? He does what He desires. 14For He carries out His decree against me, and He has many such plans. 15Therefore I am terrified in His presence; when I consider this, I fear Him. 16God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me. 17Yet I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face.
Chapter 24
1“Why does the Almighty not reserve times for judgment? Why may those who know Him never see His days? 2Men move boundary stones; they pasture stolen flocks. 3They drive away the donkey of the fatherless and take the widow’s ox in pledge. 4They push the needy off the road and force all the poor of the land into hiding. 5Indeed, like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go to work foraging for food; the wasteland is food for their children. 6They gather fodder in the fields and glean the vineyards of the wicked. 7Without clothing, they spend the night naked; they have no covering against the cold. 8Drenched by mountain rains, they huddle against the rocks for want of shelter. 9The fatherless infant is snatched from the breast; the nursing child of the poor is seized for a debt. 10Without clothing, they wander about naked. They carry the sheaves, but still go hungry. 11They crush olives within their walls; they tread the winepresses, but go thirsty. 12From the city, men groan, and the souls of the wounded cry out, yet God charges no one with wrongdoing. 13Then there are those who rebel against the light, not knowing its ways or staying on its paths. 14When daylight is gone, the murderer rises to kill the poor and needy; in the night he is like a thief. 15The eye of the adulterer watches for twilight. Thinking, ‘No eye will see me,’ he covers his face. 16In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves in, never to experience the light. 17For to them, deep darkness is their morning; surely they are friends with the terrors of darkness! 18They are but foam on the surface of the water; their portion of the land is cursed, so that no one turns toward their vineyards. 19As drought and heat consume the melting snow, so Sheol steals those who have sinned. 20The womb forgets them; the worm feeds on them; they are remembered no more. So injustice is broken like a tree. 21They prey on the barren and childless, and show no kindness to the widow. 22Yet by His power, God drags away the mighty; though rising up, they have no assurance of life. 23He gives them a sense of security, but His eyes are on their ways. 24They are exalted for a moment, then they are gone; they are brought low and gathered up like all others; they are cut off like heads of grain. 25If this is not so, then who can prove me a liar and reduce my words to nothing?”
Chapter 25
1Then Bildad the Shuhite replied: 2“Dominion and awe belong to God; He establishes harmony in the heights of heaven. 3Can His troops be numbered? On whom does His light not rise? 4How then can a man be just before God? How can one born of woman be pure? 5If even the moon does not shine, and the stars are not pure in His sight, 6how much less man, who is but a maggot, and the son of man, who is but a worm!”