AB - Job - 9

9:1  Then Job answered and said,

9:2  Truly I know it is so, for how shall a mortal man be righteous before the Lord?

9:3  For if he would enter into judgment with Him, God would not listen to him, so that he should answer to one of His charges of a thousand.

9:4  For He is wise in mind, and mighty, and great: who has hardened himself against Him and endured?

9:5  Who wears out the mountains, and men know it not: who overturns them in anger.

9:6  Who shakes the earth under heaven from its foundations, and its pillars totter.

9:7  Who commands the sun, and it rises not; and He seals up the stars.

9:8  Who alone has stretched out the heavens, and walks on the sea as on firm ground.

9:9  Who makes Pleias, and Hesperus, and Arcturus, and the chambers of the south.

9:10  Who does great and unsearchable things; glorious also and excellent things, innumerable.

9:11  If ever He should go beyond me, I shall not see Him: if He should pass by me, neither thus have I known it.

9:12  If He would take away, who shall turn Him back? Or who shall say to Him, What have You done?

9:13  For if He has turned away His anger, the whales under heaven have stooped under Him.

9:14  Oh then that He would listen to me, or judge my cause.

9:15  For though I am righteous, He will not listen to me: I will intreat His judgment.

9:16  And if I should call and He should not hear, I cannot believe that He has listened to my voice.

9:17  Let Him not crush me with a dark storm: but He has made my bruises many without cause.

9:18  For He allows me not to take breath, but He has filled me with bitterness.

9:19  For indeed He is strong in power: who then shall resist His judgment?

9:20  For though I should seem righteous, my mouth will be profane, and though I should seem blameless, I shall be proved perverse.

9:21  For even if I have sinned, I know it not in my soul: but my life is taken away.

9:22  Wherefore I said, Wrath slays the great and mighty man.

9:23  For the worthless die, but the righteous are laughed to scorn.

9:24  For they are delivered into the hands of the unrighteous man: He covers the faces of the judges of the earth: but if it is not He, who else could it be?

9:25  But my life is swifter than a post: my days have fled away, and they knew it not.

9:26  Or again, is there a trace of their path left by ships? Or is there one of the flying eagle as it seeks its prey?

9:27  And if I should say, I will forget to speak, I will bow down my face and groan;

9:28  I quake in all my limbs, for I know that You will not leave me alone as innocent.

9:29  But since I am ungodly, why have I not died?

9:30  For if I should wash myself with snow, and purge myself with pure hands,

9:31  You had thoroughly plunged me in filth, and my garment has abhorred me.

9:32  For You are not a man like me, with whom I could contend, that we might come together to judgment.

9:33  Would that He our mediator were present, and a reprover, and one who should hear the cause between both.

9:34  Let Him remove His rod from me, and let not His fear terrify me.

9:35  So shall I not be afraid, but I will speak: for I am not thus conscious of guilt.