Job 9:1-33 ▼

1 Then Job answered:

2 Truly, I know that this is so. But how can a human be just before God?

3 If someone wishes to contend with him, he cannot answer him one time in a thousand.

4 He is wise in heart and mighty in strength--who has resisted him and remained safe?

5 He who removes mountains suddenly, who overturns them in his anger;

6 he who shakes the earth out of its place so that its pillars tremble;

7 he who commands the sun and it does not shine and seals up the stars;

8 he alone spreads out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea;

9 he makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the constellations of the southern sky;

10 he does great and unsearchable things, and wonderful things without number.

11 If he passes by me, I cannot see him, if he goes by, I cannot perceive him.

12 If he snatches away, who can turn him back? Who dares to say to him, 'What are you doing?'

13 God does not restrain his anger; under him the helpers of Rahab lie crushed.

14 How much less, then, can I answer him and choose my words to argue with him!

15 Although I am innocent, I could not answer him; I could only plead with my judge for mercy.

16 If I summoned him, and he answered me, I would not believe that he would be listening to my voice--

17 he who crushes me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds for no reason.

18 He does not allow me to recover my breath, for he fills me with bitterness.

19 If it is a matter of strength, most certainly he is the strong one! And if it is a matter of justice, he will say, 'Who will summon me?'

20 Although I am innocent, my mouth would condemn me; although I am blameless, it would declare me perverse.

21 I am blameless. I do not know myself. I despise my life.

22 It is all one! That is why I say, 'He destroys the blameless and the guilty.'

23 If a scourge brings sudden death, he mocks at the despair of the innocent.

24 If a land has been given into the hand of a wicked man, he covers the faces of its judges; if it is not he, then who is it?

25 My days are swifter than a runner, they speed by without seeing happiness.

26 They glide by like reed boats, like an eagle that swoops down on its prey.

27 If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will change my expression and be cheerful,'

28 I dread all my sufferings, for I know that you do not hold me blameless.

29 If I am guilty, why then weary myself in vain?

30 If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands clean with lye,

31 then you plunge me into a slimy pit and my own clothes abhor me.

32 For he is not a human being like I am, that I might answer him, that we might come together in judgment.

33 Nor is there an arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both,