Job 9

Job: How Can I Contend with God?

¹Then Job answered:

²“Yes, I know that it is so,

but how can a mortal be righteous before God?1

³If one wished to contend with God,

he could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.1

⁴God is wise in heart and mighty in strength.

Who has resisted Him and prospered?

⁵He moves mountains without their knowledge

and overturns them in His anger.

⁶He shakes the earth from its place,

so that its foundations tremble.

⁷He commands the sun not to shine;

He seals off the stars.

⁸He alone stretches out the heavens

and treads on the waves of the sea.

⁹He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion,

of the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.

¹⁰He does great things beyond searching out,

and wonders without number.

¹¹Were He to pass by me, I would not see Him;

were He to move, I would not recognize Him.

¹²If He takes away, who can stop Him?

Who dares to ask Him, ‘What are You doing?’

¹³God does not restrain His anger;

the helpers of Rahab cower beneath Him.

¹⁴How then can I answer Him

or choose my arguments against Him?

¹⁵For even if I were right, I could not answer.

I could only beg my Judge for mercy.

¹⁶If I summoned Him and He answered me,

I do not believe He would listen to my voice.

¹⁷For He would crush me with a tempest

and multiply my wounds without cause.1

¹⁸He does not let me catch my breath,

but overwhelms me with bitterness.

¹⁹If it is a matter of strength,

He is indeed mighty!

If it is a matter of justice,

who can summon Him?1

²⁰Even if I were righteous, my mouth would condemn me;

if I were blameless, it would declare me guilty.1

²¹Though I am blameless, I have no concern for myself;

I despise my own life.

²²It is all the same, and so I say,

‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’

²³When the scourge brings sudden death,

He mocks the despair of the innocent.

²⁴The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;

He blindfolds its judges.

If it is not He, then who is it?1

²⁵My days are swifter than a runner;

they flee without seeing good.

²⁶They sweep by like boats of papyrus,

like an eagle swooping down on its prey.

²⁷If I were to say, ‘I will forget my complaint

and change my expression and smile,’

²⁸I would still dread all my sufferings;

I know that You will not acquit me.

²⁹Since I am already found guilty,

why should I labor in vain?

³⁰If I should wash myself with snow

and cleanse my hands with lye,1

³¹then You would plunge me into the pit,

and even my own clothes would despise me.

³²For He is not a man like me, that I can answer Him,

that we can take each other to court.

³³Nor is there a mediator between us,

to lay his hand upon us both.

³⁴Let Him remove His rod from me,

so that His terror will no longer frighten me.

³⁵Then I would speak without fear of Him.

But as it is, I am on my own.