Job 9

Job Replies: There Is No Arbiter

¹Then Job answered and said:

²“Truly I know that it is so:

But how can a man be in the right before God?

³If one wished to contend with him,

one could not answer him once in a thousand times.

⁴He is wise in heart and mighty in strength

—who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—

⁵he who removes mountains, and they know it not,

when he overturns them in his anger,

⁶who shakes the earth out of its place,

and its pillars tremble;

⁷who commands the sun, and it does not rise;

who seals up the stars;

⁸who alone stretched out the heavens

and trampled the waves of the sea;

⁹who made the Bear and Orion,

the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;

¹⁰who does great things beyond searching out,

and marvelous things beyond number.

¹¹Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not;

he moves on, but I do not perceive him.

¹²Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back?

Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

¹³“God will not turn back his anger;

beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab.

¹⁴How then can I answer him,

choosing my words with him?

¹⁵Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him;

I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.

¹⁶If I summoned him and he answered me,

I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.

¹⁷For he crushes me with a tempest

and multiplies my wounds without cause;

¹⁸he will not let me get my breath,

but fills me with bitterness.

¹⁹If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty!

If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?

²⁰Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me;

though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.

²¹I am blameless; I regard not myself;

I loathe my life.

²²It is all one; therefore I say,

‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’

²³When disaster brings sudden death,

he mocks at the calamity of the innocent.

²⁴The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;

he covers the faces of its judges—

if it is not he, who then is it?

²⁵“My days are swifter than a runner;

they flee away; they see no good.

²⁶They go by like skiffs of reed,

like an eagle swooping on the prey.

²⁷If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,

I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’

²⁸I become afraid of all my suffering,

for I know you will not hold me innocent.

²⁹I shall be condemned;

why then do I labor in vain?

³⁰If I wash myself with snow

and cleanse my hands with lye,

³¹yet you will plunge me into a pit,

and my own clothes will abhor me.

³²For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,

that we should come to trial together.

³³There is no arbiter between us,

who might lay his hand on us both.

³⁴Let him take his rod away from me,

and let not dread of him terrify me.

³⁵Then I would speak without fear of him,

for I am not so in myself.