| 9:1 |
Then Job answered, |
| 9:2 |
"Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God? |
| 9:3 |
If he is pleased to contend with him, he can't answer him one time in a thousand. |
| 9:4 |
God who is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who has hardened himself against him, and prospered? |
| 9:5 |
He removes the mountains, and they don't know it, when he overturns them in his anger. |
| 9:6 |
He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble. |
| 9:7 |
He commands the sun, and it doesn't rise, and seals up the stars. |
| 9:8 |
He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea. |
| 9:9 |
He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. |
| 9:10 |
He does great things past finding out; yes, marvelous things without number. |
| 9:11 |
Behold, he goes by me, and I don't see him. He passes on also, but I don't perceive him. |
| 9:12 |
Behold, he snatches away. Who can hinder him? Who will ask him, 'What are you doing?' |
| 9:13 |
"God will not withdraw his anger. The helpers of Rahab stoop under him. |
| 9:14 |
How much less shall I answer him, And choose my words to argue with him? |
| 9:15 |
Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn't answer him. I would make supplication to my judge. |
| 9:16 |
If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I wouldn't believe that he listened to my voice. |
| 9:17 |
For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause. |
| 9:18 |
He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness. |
| 9:19 |
If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty! If of justice, 'Who,' says he, 'will summon me?' |
| 9:20 |
Though I am righteous, my own mouth shall condemn me. Though I am blameless, it shall prove me perverse. |
| 9:21 |
I am blameless. I don't regard myself. I despise my life. |
| 9:22 |
"It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked. |
| 9:23 |
If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent. |
| 9:24 |
The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of the judges of it. If not he, then who is it? |
| 9:25 |
"Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away, they see no good, |
| 9:26 |
They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey. |
| 9:27 |
If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and cheer up;' |
| 9:28 |
I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that you will not hold me innocent. |
| 9:29 |
I shall be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain? |
| 9:30 |
If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye, |
| 9:31 |
yet you will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes shall abhor me. |
| 9:32 |
For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgment. |
| 9:33 |
There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both. |
| 9:34 |
Let him take his rod away from me. Let his terror not make me afraid; |
| 9:35 |
then I would speak, and not fear him, for I am not so in myself. |
