Job 5

¹“Call now; is there any who will answer you?

To which of the holy ones will you turn?

²For resentment kills the foolish man,

and jealousy kills the simple.

³I have seen the foolish taking root,

but suddenly I cursed his habitation.

⁴His children are far from safety.

They are crushed in the gate.

Neither is there any to deliver them,

⁵whose harvest the hungry eat up,

and take it even out of the thorns.

The snare gapes for their substance.

⁶For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust,

neither does trouble spring out of the ground;

⁷but man is born to trouble,

as the sparks fly upward.

⁸“But as for me, I would seek God.

I would commit my cause to God,

⁹who does great things that can’t be fathomed,

marvelous things without number;

¹⁰who gives rain on the earth,

and sends waters on the fields;

¹¹so that he sets up on high those who are low,

those who mourn are exalted to safety.

¹²He frustrates the plans of the crafty,

so that their hands can’t perform their enterprise.

¹³He takes the wise in their own craftiness;

the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong.

¹⁴They meet with darkness in the day time,

and grope at noonday as in the night.

¹⁵But he saves from the sword of their mouth,

even the needy from the hand of the mighty.

¹⁶So the poor has hope,

and injustice shuts her mouth.

¹⁷“Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects.

Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.

¹⁸For he wounds and binds up.

He injures and his hands make whole.

¹⁹He will deliver you in six troubles;

yes, in seven no evil will touch you.

²⁰In famine he will redeem you from death;

in war, from the power of the sword.

²¹You will be hidden from the scourge of the tongue,

neither will you be afraid of destruction when it comes.

²²You will laugh at destruction and famine,

neither will you be afraid of the animals of the earth.

²³For you will be allied with the stones of the field.

The animals of the field will be at peace with you.

²⁴You will know that your tent is in peace.

You will visit your fold, and will miss nothing.

²⁵You will know also that your offspring will be great,

your offspring as the grass of the earth.

²⁶You will come to your grave in a full age,

like a shock of grain comes in its season.

²⁷Behold, we have researched it. It is so.

Hear it, and know it for your good.”