3.3 KiB
Job's Third Speech: A Response to Bildad
Chapter 9
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Then Job spoke again:
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"Yes, I know all this is true in principle.
But how can a person be declared innocent in God's sight?
- If someone wanted to take God to court,
would it be possible to answer him even once in a thousand times?
- For God is so wise and so mighty.
Who has ever challenged him successfully?
- "Without warning, he moves the mountains,
overturning them in his anger.
- He shakes the earth from its place,
and its foundations tremble.
- If he commands it, the sun won't rise
and the stars won't shine.
- He alone has spread out the heavens
and marches on the waves of the sea.
- He made all the stars--the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the constellations of the southern sky.
- He does great things too marvelous to understand.
He performs countless miracles.
- "Yet when he comes near, I cannot see him.
When he moves by, I do not see him go.
- If he snatches someone in death, who can stop him?
Who dares to ask, 'What are you doing?'
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And God does not restrain his anger. Even the monsters of the sea are crushed beneath his feet.
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"So who am I, that I should try to answer God
or even reason with him?
- Even if I were right, I would have no defense.
I could only plead for mercy.
- And even if I summoned him and he responded,
I'm not sure he would listen to me.
- For he attacks me with a storm
and repeatedly wounds me without cause.
- He will not let me catch my breath,
but fills me instead with bitter sorrows.
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If it's a question of strength, he's the strong one. If it's a matter of justice, who dares to summon him to court?
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Though I am innocent, my own mouth would pronounce me guilty. Though I am blameless, it would prove me wicked.
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"I am innocent,
but it makes no difference to me--
I despise my life.
- Innocent or wicked, it is all the same to God.
That's why I say, 'He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.'
- When a plague sweeps through,
he laughs at the death of the innocent.
- The whole earth is in the hands of the wicked,
and God blinds the eyes of the judges.
If he's not the one who does it, who is?
- "My life passes more swiftly than a runner.
It flees away without a glimpse of happiness.
- It disappears like a swift papyrus boat,
like an eagle swooping down on its prey.
- If I decided to forget my complaints,
to put away my sad face and be cheerful,
- I would still dread all the pain,
for I know you will not find me innocent, O God.
- Whatever happens, I will be found guilty.
So what's the use of trying?
- Even if I were to wash myself with soap
and clean my hands with lye,
- you would plunge me into a muddy ditch,
and my own filthy clothing would hate me.
- "God is not a mortal like me,
so I cannot argue with him or take him to trial.
- If only there were a mediator between us,
someone who could bring us together.
- The mediator could make God stop beating me,
and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment.
- Then I could speak to him without fear,
but I cannot do that in my own strength.