Job

2 “Wise men, hear my words;

give ear to me, men of knowledge;

3 For ears test words

and a palate tastes food.

4 Let us pick out rights

and come to an understanding of what is good,

5 Because Job says ‘I am virtuous

but Deity has taken away my rights;

6** Against my rights I am to be lying

and I have a festering arrow in me without a crime.’

7 Who is such a man as Job,

who drinks scurrility like water

8* And takes the route to fellowship with villains

and to company with criminals?

9 Because he says ‘It is of no advantage to a man

to be on good terms with God.’

10 So, men of sense, hear me:

away with the thought of wrong-doing on Deity’s part,

foul play on Shaddai’s,

11 For he will pay man back appropriately to what he does,

and give each one the experiences proper to the path he takes.

12 In real truth Deity does not do wrong

nor Shaddai play tricks with justice.

13* Who put him in charge of earth?

and who established the whole universe?

14* If he should draw his spirit back to himself

and take up to himself his breath,

15 All creatures of flesh would expire together

and man would go back to clay.

16* And if you are in your senses, listen to me;

give ear to the point I make.

17 Is it even to be that one who hates justice holds sway

or a great right-doer does wrong?

18 He who says ‘reprobate’ to a king

and ‘iniquitous’ to noblemen,

19 Who does not defer to generals

nor recognize a prominent man before a poor man,

because they are all the work of his hands?

20** They die in a moment, at midnight;

he touches prominent men and they pass by,

and removes a formidable fighter without turning a hand.

21 For his eyes are on a man’s courses

and he sees all his steps;

22 There is no darkness, no gloom,

that villains may be veiled in.

23* For a man does not have a date set him

to go to Deity for a trial;

24 He breaks great men without an investigation

and sets up others in their place.

25 So he is aware of their works,

and overthrows in the night and they are beaten down.

26* For wrong-doers he cuffs them

in a place with spectators,

27 Seeing that they had turned off from following him

and not been regardful of any of his courses,

28 Bringing in before him a poor man’s outcry

and letting him hear the outcry of downtrodden men.

29* But if he is quiet who is to condemn?

or if he veils his face who is to behold him?

be it over a nation or over a man alike,

30* That an ungodly man may not be king,

a people’s trap.

31*** For does he say to Deity

‘I bear; I will not do harmful things;

32 What I do not see, teach me yourself;

if I have done amiss I will not keep on’?

33 Was he to make requital on the basis of your ideas,

that you are vetoing?

For you are to choose, not I;

what you know, speak out!

34 Men of brains will say to me,

and a wise man who hears me,

35* Job speaks not by knowledge

and his words do not run by common sense.

36* Let Job be kept under test permanently

for answers that put him among villains!

37* For he adds rebelliousness to his sin,

slaps his hands between us

and talks volubly to the Deity.”