Job 27

Job’s Final Speech

¹Job continued speaking:

²“I vow by the living God, who has taken away my rights,

by the Almighty who has embittered my soul—

³As long as I live,

while I have breath from God,

⁴my lips will speak no evil,

and my tongue will speak no lies.

⁵I will never concede that you are right;

I will defend my integrity until I die.

⁶I will maintain my innocence without wavering.

My conscience is clear for as long as I live.

⁷“May my enemy be punished like the wicked,

my adversary like those who do evil.

⁸For what hope do the godless have when God cuts them off

and takes away their life?

⁹Will God listen to their cry

when trouble comes upon them?

¹⁰Can they take delight in the Almighty?

Can they call to God at any time?

¹¹I will teach you about God’s power.

I will not conceal anything concerning the Almighty.

¹²But you have seen all this,

yet you say all these useless things to me.

¹³“This is what the wicked will receive from God;

this is their inheritance from the Almighty.

¹⁴They may have many children,

but the children will die in war or starve to death.

¹⁵Those who survive will die of a plague,

and not even their widows will mourn them.

¹⁶“Evil people may have piles of money

and may store away mounds of clothing.

¹⁷But the righteous will wear that clothing,

and the innocent will divide that money.

¹⁸The wicked build houses as fragile as a spider’s web,^a

as flimsy as a shelter made of branches.

¹⁹The wicked go to bed rich

but wake to find that all their wealth is gone.

²⁰Terror overwhelms them like a flood,

and they are blown away in the storms of the night.

²¹The east wind carries them away, and they are gone.

It sweeps them away.

²²It whirls down on them without mercy.

They struggle to flee from its power.

²³But everyone jeers at them

and mocks them.