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Job replies to Bildad[a]

26 Then Job replied. This is what he said:

‘Do not think that you have helped me,
    a weak and helpless man.
Nothing that you have said makes me feel stronger.
What good advice have you given me
    to make me wise?
You have not really shown me how clever you are!
Someone must have helped you to say these wise words.
    Who has put all these thoughts in your minds?

Dead people shake with fear.
    They are under the deep waters.
God sees everything that happens
    in the place of dead people.
Nothing can hide that terrible place from him.
He puts the skies in their place in the north,
    so that they cover empty space.
He hangs the earth in the skies
    and it stays there.
He fills the clouds with water.
    They become heavy but they do not break.
When the moon is big and round, he hides it.
    He causes clouds to cover it.
10 He marks the border between the sea and the sky.
    It is the place where the night finishes and the day begins.
11 When God is angry,
    he shouts at the pillars under the sky.
When they hear his command,
    they shake with fear.
12 He used his power to control the sea.
He used his wisdom to destroy Rahab,
    the great sea monster.
13 He used his breath to make the sky become bright.
With his hand he cut the great sea snake
    as it ran away.
14 These are only a few of the things that God does.
    We only know about a few small things.
If he used all of his power,
    we could never understand.’

Job continues to speak

27 Job continued to speak. This is what he said:

‘Almighty God has not been fair to me.
    He has caused my life to be very sad.
As surely as he lives, I promise this:
As long as God's Spirit gives me life,
    I will never speak any lies.
    I will always be honest.
I will never agree that you, my three friends, are right.
Until the day of my death,
    I will continue to say what I know is right.
I will never agree that I am guilty.
During all of my life,
    my thoughts do not say that I am doing anything wrong.

I pray that God will punish my enemies
    as he punishes all wicked people.
They do bad things to me,
    so they deserve punishment.
When God chooses to remove wicked people,
    they cannot hope for any good thing.
God will cause them to die.
When they are in trouble and they pray for help,
    God will not listen to them.
10 People like that are not happy that Almighty God is their friend.
    They do not like to pray to him all the time.
11 I will teach you about the power of Almighty God.
    I will explain to you what he is thinking.
12 You yourselves have all seen what God has done.
    So you should stop saying all these useless things!
13 I will tell you what Almighty God does to wicked people.
    He punishes cruel people as they deserve.
14 Wicked people may have many children,
    but they will die in war.
Their children will never have enough food to eat.
15 Illness will kill any children who continue to live.
    Their widows will not weep when they are dead.
16 Wicked people may have lots of money.
    They may have silver like heaps of sand.
    They may have more clothes than they could ever wear.
17 But one day righteous people will wear those clothes.
    Honest people will share the silver among themselves.
18 The houses that wicked people build are not strong.
    They are as weak as a spider's web,[b]
    or a shepherd's hut,
19 Their riches quickly disappear.
    They are rich when they go to sleep,
    but poor when they wake up.
20 Troubles come to them like a flood of water,
    and they are very afraid.
A storm comes in the night to carry them away.
21 The east wind picks them up and takes then far away.[c]
    It removes them from their homes.
22 It is a strong wind that hits wicked people
    and it never stops.
It continues to beat them as they try to escape.
23 The cruel wind laughs at them
    as they run away in fear.’

Footnotes

  1. 26:1 In chapters 26 and 27, Job says two things. First, he does not agree with the things that his friends have said, see Job 27:5. Second, he is sure that he has never done wrong things, see Job 27:6.
  2. 27:18 A spider is small, like an insect. It uses very thin strings (threads) to make a web. It catches insects in the web for its food.
  3. 27:21 The wind in verses 21 to 23 is probably a picture of the troubles that come to wicked people.