Job Chapter 9 Back Next{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 [
Note], Orion, and the Pleiades, and the rooms 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 respect 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 its judges. 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.
Job Chapter 9 Back Next