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Job Chides His Accusers

Then Job responded,

2 “No doubt ayou are the only wise people in the world,And wisdom will die with you!3 “But aI have intelligence and understanding as well as you;I am not inferior to you.Who does not know such things as these of God’s wisdom and might?4 “I am a ajoke to my friends;I, one whom God answered when he called upon Him—A just and bblameless man is a joke and laughed to scorn.5 “He who is at ease has contempt for misfortune,But misfortune is ready and anxiously waiting for those whose feet slip.6 “The atents of the destroyers prosper;And those who provoke God bare apparently secure,Whom God brings cinto their power.
7 “Now ask the animals, and let them teach you that God does not deal with His creatures according to their character;And ask the birds of the air, and let them tell you;8 Or speak to the earth with its many forms of life, and it will teach you;And let the fish of the sea declare this truth to you.9 “Who among all these does not recognize in all these things that good and evil are randomly scattered throughout nature and human lifeThat the ahand of the LORD has done this,10 aIn whose hand is the life of every living thing,And bthe breath of all mankind?11 “Does athe ear not put words to the test,Just as the palate tastes its food distinguishing between the desirable and the undesirable?12 “With the aaged you say is wisdom,And with 1long life is understanding.
Job Speaks of the Power of God
13 “But only with Him are perfect awisdom and bmight;He alone has true counsel and cunderstanding.14 “Behold, He atears down, and it cannot be rebuilt;He bimprisons a man, and there can be no release.15 “Behold, He arestrains the waters, and they dry up;Again, He bsends the waters out, and they overwhelm and devastate the earth.16 “With Him are might and sound wisdom,The amisled and the misleader are His and in His power.17 “He makes great and scheming acounselors walk barefootAnd makes fools of bjudges.18 “He aloosens the bond of kingsAnd binds their loins with a loincloth.19 “He makes priests walk barefoot,And aHe overturns men firmly seated and secure.20 “He deprives the trusted ones of speechAnd atakes away the discernment and discretion of the aged.21 “He apours contempt on princes and noblesAnd bloosens the belt of the strong disabling them.22 “He auncovers mysteries that are difficult to grasp and understand out of the darknessAnd brings black gloom and the shadow of death into light.23 “He amakes nations great, and He destroys them;He enlarges nations, and leads them away captive.24 “He aremoves intelligence and understanding from the leaders of the people of the earthAnd makes them wander and move blindly in a pathless waste.25 “They agrope in darkness without light,And He makes them bstagger like a drunken man.”
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