Job Affirms God's Power and Wisdom

121 Then Job answered, 2 “No doubt, but you are the people,
and wisdom shall die with you. 3 But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you.
Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these? 4 I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor,
I, who called on God, and he answered.
The just, the blameless man is a joke. 5 In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune.
It is ready for them whose foot slips.

6 The tents of robbers prosper.
Those who provoke God are secure,
who carry their God in their hands. 7 “But ask the animals, now, and they shall teach you;
the birds of the sky, and they shall tell you. 8 Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you.
The fish of the sea shall declare to you. 9 Who doesn’t know that in all these,
the hand of Yahweh has done this, 10 in whose hand is the life of every living thing,
and the breath of all mankind? 11 Doesn’t the ear try words,
even as the palate tastes its food?

12 With aged men is wisdom,
in length of days understanding. 13 “With God is wisdom and might.
He has counsel and understanding. 14 Behold, he breaks down, and it can’t be built again.
He imprisons a man, and there can be no release. 15 Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up.
Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth. 16 With him is strength and wisdom.
The deceived and the deceiver are his. 17 He leads counselors away stripped.
He makes judges fools. 18 He loosens the bond of kings.
He binds their waist with a belt. 19 He leads priests away stripped,
and overthrows the mighty. 20 He removes the speech of those who are trusted,
and takes away the understanding of the elders. 21 He pours contempt on princes,
and loosens the belt of the strong. 22 He uncovers deep things out of darkness,
and brings out to light the shadow of death. 23 He increases the nations, and he destroys them.
He enlarges the nations, and he leads them captive. 24 He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth,
and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. 25 They grope in the dark without light.
He makes them stagger like a drunken man.

Job Bewails His Birth

31 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. 2 Job answered: 3 “Let the day perish in which I was born,
the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’ 4 Let that day be darkness.
Don’t let God from above seek for it,
neither let the light shine on it. 5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own.
Let a cloud dwell on it.
Let all that makes black the day terrify it. 6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it.
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year.
Let it not come into the number of the months. 7 Behold, let that night be barren.
Let no joyful voice come therein. 8 Let them curse it who curse the day,
who are ready to rouse up leviathan. 9 Let the stars of its twilight be dark.
Let it look for light, but have none,
neither let it see the eyelids of the morning, 10 because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,
nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.

11 “Why didn’t I die from the womb?
Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me? 12 Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breast, that I should suck? 13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet.
I should have slept, then I would have been at rest, 14 with kings and counselors of the earth,
who built up waste places for themselves; 15 or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver: 16 or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been,
as infants who never saw light. 17 There the wicked cease from troubling.
There the weary are at rest. 18 There the prisoners are at ease together.
They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster. 19 The small and the great are there.
The servant is free from his master.

20 “Why is light given to him who is in misery,
life to the bitter in soul, 21 Who long for death, but it doesn’t come;
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, 22 who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad, when they can find the grave? 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid,
whom God has hedged in? 24 For my sighing comes before I eat.
My groanings are poured out like water. 25 For the thing which I fear comes on me,
That which I am afraid of comes to me. 26 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest;
but trouble comes.”