Job 27

Job’s Final Word to His Friends

¹And Job continued his discourse:

²“As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice,

the Almighty, who has made my life bitter,

³as long as I have life within me,

the breath of God in my nostrils,

⁴my lips will not say anything wicked,

and my tongue will not utter lies.

⁵I will never admit you are in the right;

till I die, I will not deny my integrity.

⁶I will maintain my innocence and never let go of it;

my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.

⁷“May my enemy be like the wicked,

my adversary like the unjust!

⁸For what hope have the godless when they are cut off,

when God takes away their life?

⁹Does God listen to their cry

when distress comes upon them?

¹⁰Will they find delight in the Almighty?

Will they call on God at all times?

¹¹“I will teach you about the power of God;

the ways of the Almighty I will not conceal.

¹²You have all seen this yourselves.

Why then this meaningless talk?

¹³“Here is the fate God allots to the wicked,

the heritage a ruthless man receives from the Almighty:

¹⁴However many his children, their fate is the sword;

his offspring will never have enough to eat.

¹⁵The plague will bury those who survive him,

and their widows will not weep for them.

¹⁶Though he heaps up silver like dust

and clothes like piles of clay,

¹⁷what he lays up the righteous will wear,

and the innocent will divide his silver.

¹⁸The house he builds is like a moth’s cocoon,

like a hut made by a watchman.

¹⁹He lies down wealthy, but will do so no more;

when he opens his eyes, all is gone.

²⁰Terrors overtake him like a flood;

a tempest snatches him away in the night.

²¹The east wind carries him off, and he is gone;

it sweeps him out of his place.

²²It hurls itself against him without mercy

as he flees headlong from its power.

²³It claps its hands in derision

and hisses him out of his place.”