Job 36

²“Bear with me a little, and I will show you;

for I still have something to say on God’s behalf.

³I will get my knowledge from afar,

and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.

⁴For truly my words are not false.

One who is perfect in knowledge is with you.

⁵“Behold, God is mighty, and doesn’t despise anyone.

He is mighty in strength of understanding.

⁶He doesn’t preserve the life of the wicked,

but gives justice to the afflicted.

⁷He doesn’t withdraw his eyes from the righteous,

but with kings on the throne,

he sets them forever, and they are exalted.

⁸If they are bound in fetters,

and are taken in the cords of afflictions,

⁹then he shows them their work,

and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly.

¹⁰He also opens their ears to instruction,

and commands that they return from iniquity.

¹¹If they listen and serve him,

they will spend their days in prosperity,

and their years in pleasures.

¹²But if they don’t listen, they will perish by the sword;

they will die without knowledge.

¹³“But those who are godless in heart lay up anger.

They don’t cry for help when he binds them.

¹⁴They die in youth.

Their life perishes amongst the unclean.

¹⁵He delivers the afflicted by their affliction,

and opens their ear in oppression.

¹⁶Yes, he would have allured you out of distress,

into a wide place, where there is no restriction.

That which is set on your table would be full of fatness.

¹⁷“But you are full of the judgement of the wicked.

Judgement and justice take hold of you.

¹⁸Don’t let riches entice you to wrath,

neither let the great size of a bribe turn you aside.

¹⁹Would your wealth sustain you in distress,

or all the might of your strength?

²⁰Don’t desire the night,

when people are cut off in their place.

²¹Take heed, don’t regard iniquity;

for you have chosen this rather than affliction.

²²Behold, God is exalted in his power.

Who is a teacher like him?

²³Who has prescribed his way for him?

Or who can say, ‘You have committed unrighteousness?’

²⁴“Remember that you magnify his work,

about which men have sung.

²⁵All men have looked on it.

Man sees it afar off.

²⁶Behold, God is great, and we don’t know him.

The number of his years is unsearchable.

²⁷For he draws up the drops of water,

which distill in rain from his vapour,

²⁸which the skies pour down

and which drop on man abundantly.

²⁹Indeed, can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds

and the thunderings of his pavilion?

³⁰Behold, he spreads his light around him.

He covers the bottom of the sea.

³¹For by these he judges the people.

He gives food in abundance.

³²He covers his hands with the lightning,

and commands it to strike the mark.

³³Its noise tells about him,

and the livestock also, concerning the storm that comes up.