Job 9

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