Job: This Is YHWH’s Doing

¹Then Job answered,

²“No doubt, but y’all are the people,

and wisdom will die with y’all.

³But I have understanding as well as y’all;

I am not inferior to y’all.

Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these?

⁴I am a joke to my friends,

I called on God, and ʜᴇ answered.

The righteous and blameless person is a joke.

⁵In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune.

It is ready for them whose foot slips.

⁶The tents of robbers prosper.

Those who provoke God are secure,

who carry their god in their hands.

⁷“But ask the animals now, and they will teach you;

the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.

⁸Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you.

The fish of the sea will declare to you.

⁹Who doesn’t know that in all these,

YHWH’s hand has done this,

¹⁰in whose hand is the life of every living thing,

and the breath of all humanity?

¹¹Doesn’t the ear try words,

even as the palate tastes its food?

¹²Wisdom is with the aged ones,

in length of days understanding.

¹³“With God is wisdom and might.

Hᴇ has counsel and understanding.

¹⁴Hᴇ breaks down, and it can’t be built again.

Those ʜᴇ imprisons cannot be released.

¹⁵See how ʜᴇ withholds the waters, and they dry up.

Again, ʜᴇ sends them out, and they overturn the earth.

¹⁶With ʜɪᴍ is strength and wisdom.

The deceived and the deceiver are his.

¹⁷Hᴇ leads counselors away stripped.

Hᴇ makes judges into fools.

¹⁸Hᴇ loosens the bond of kings.

Hᴇ binds their waist with a belt.

¹⁹Hᴇ leads priests away stripped,

and overthrows the mighty.

²⁰Hᴇ removes the speech of those who are trusted,

and takes away the understanding of the elders.

²¹Hᴇ pours contempt on princes,

and loosens the belt of the strong.

²²Hᴇ uncovers deep things out of darkness,

and brings out to light the shadow of death.

²³Hᴇ increases the nations, and ʜᴇ destroys them.

Hᴇ enlarges the nations, and ʜᴇ leads them captive.

²⁴Hᴇ takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth,

and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.

²⁵They grope in the dark without light.

He makes them stagger like a drunken man.