Job - Chapter 9 - A Conservative Version
- Then Job answered and said,
- Of a truth I know that it is so. But how can man be just with God?
- If he is pleased to contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.
- [He is] wise in heart, and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against him, and prospered?
- [He] who removes the mountains, and they do not know it when he overturns them in his anger,
- who shakes the earth out of its place, and the pillars of it tremble,
- who commands the sun, and it does not rise, and seals up the stars,
- who alone stretches out the heavens, and treads upon the waves of the sea,
- who makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the chambers of the south,
- who does great things past finding out, yea, marvelous things without number.
- Lo, he goes by me, and I do not see him. He also passes on, but I do not perceive him.
- Behold, he seizes; who can hinder him? Who will say to him, What are thou doing?
- God will not withdraw his anger. The helpers of Rahab stoop under him.
- How much less shall I answer him, and choose out my words [to reason] with him?
- Whom, though I were righteous, yet I would not answer. I would make supplication to my judge.
- If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I would not believe that he hearkened to my voice.
- For he breaks me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds without cause.
- He will not allow me to take my breath, but fills me with bitterness.
- If of strength, lo, [he is] mighty! And if of justice, who will summon me?
- Though I be righteous, my own mouth shall condemn me. Though I be perfect, it shall prove me perverse.
- Though I were perfect, I do not regard myself. I despise my life.
- It is all one thing. Therefore I say, He destroys the perfect and the wicked.
- If the scourge kills suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent.
- The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of the judges of it. If not [he], who then is it?
- Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away. They see no good,
- They are passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey.
- If I say, I will forget my complaint. I will put off my [sad] countenance, and be of good cheer,
- I am afraid of all my sorrows. I know that thou will not hold me innocent.
- I shall be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain?
- If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean,
- yet thou will plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me.
- For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgment.
- There is no umpire between us who might lay his hand upon us both.
- Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his terror make me afraid.
- Then I would speak, and not be afraid of him, for I am not so in myself.