Job 22:2-30 ▼

2 “Can a man be useful to God? Can even a wise one benefit Him?

3 Is it pleasure to Shaddai that you are righteous, or gain that you perfect your ways?

4 For your fear does He rebuke you and enter against you into judgment?

5 Is not your evil great, and your iniquity without end?

6 For you take a pledge from your brothers needlessly, and the garments the naked you strip off.

7 You have not quenched with water the weary, and from the hungry you have withheld bread.

8 But the man of arm, unto him is the land, and the uplifted of face, he dwells in it!

9 You have sent away widows in emptiness, and the arms of the fatherless are crushed.

10 Upon thus there are snares all around you, and dread suddenly terrifies you,

11 or darkness you cannot see, and an abundance of waters covers you.

12 Is not God in the height of the heavens? And behold, the head of the stars, how exalted they are!

13 And you say, ‘What does God know? How can He judge through the dark cloud?

14 Clouds are a covering for Him, so that He does not see, and the vault of the heavens He walks about.’

15 Will you keep the way of old, which men of iniquity have trod,

16 who were seized, and it was not time, their foundation was poured out by a torrent?

17 They said to God, ‘Turn away from us!’ And’What can Shaddai do to us?’

18 Yet He filled their houses with good—and the counsel of the wicked, may it be far from me!

19 The righteous see it and are glad, and the innocent one mocks them:

20 ‘Surely our adversaries cut off, and fire consumes their excess.’

21 Make yourself of use now, and be at peace with Him; with these things will come to you good.

22 Receive, please, instruction from His mouth, and set His words in your heart.

23 If you should return to Shaddai, you will be built up, if you put far away from your tent iniquity,

24 and if you set your gold upon the dust, and Ophir among the stones of the torrents,

25 then Shaddai will be your gold, and the silver of heights for you.

26 For then you will take delight in Shaddai, and you will lift to God your face.

27 You will pray to Him, and He will hear you, and your vows you will fulfill.

28 Then you will decree a word, and it will stand for you, and upon your paths light will shine.

29 When they have made low, and you say Lift up, then the lowly of eyes He will save.

30 He will deliver the one not innocent, rescuing him by the purity of your hands.”