Job 26

Job’s Ninth Speech: A Response to Bildad

¹Then Job spoke again:

²“How you have helped the powerless!

How you have saved the weak!

³How you have enlightened my stupidity!

What wise advice you have offered!

⁴Where have you gotten all these wise sayings?

Whose spirit speaks through you?

⁵“The dead tremble—

those who live beneath the waters.

⁶The underworld^a is naked in God’s presence.

The place of destruction^b is uncovered.

⁷God stretches the northern sky over empty space

and hangs the earth on nothing.

⁸He wraps the rain in his thick clouds,

and the clouds don’t burst with the weight.

⁹He covers the face of the moon,^c

shrouding it with his clouds.

¹⁰He created the horizon when he separated the waters;

he set the boundary between day and night.

¹¹The foundations of heaven tremble;

they shudder at his rebuke.

¹²By his power the sea grew calm.

By his skill he crushed the great sea monster.^d

¹³His Spirit made the heavens beautiful,

and his power pierced the gliding serpent.

¹⁴These are just the beginning of all that he does,

merely a whisper of his power.

Who, then, can comprehend the thunder of his power?”