NETtext - Job - 9

9:1  Then Job answered:

9:2  "Truly, I know that this is so. But how can a human be just before God?

9:3  If someone wishes to contend with him, he cannot answer him one time in a thousand.

9:4  He is wise in heart and mighty in strength - who has resisted him and remained safe?

9:5  He who removes mountains suddenly, who overturns them in his anger;

9:6  he who shakes the earth out of its place so that its pillars tremble;

9:7  he who commands the sun and it does not shine and seals up the stars;

9:8  he alone spreads out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea;

9:9  he makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the constellations of the southern sky;

9:10  he does great and unsearchable things, and wonderful things without number.

9:11  If he passes by me, I cannot see him, if he goes by, I cannot perceive him.

9:12  If he snatches away, who can turn him back? Who dares to say to him, 'What are you doing?'

9:13  God does not restrain his anger; under him the helpers of Rahab lie crushed.

9:14  "How much less, then, can I answer him and choose my words to argue with him!

9:15  Although I am innocent, I could not answer him; I could only plead with my judge for mercy.

9:16  If I summoned him, and he answered me, I would not believe that he would be listening to my voice -

9:17  he who crushes me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds for no reason.

9:18  He does not allow me to recover my breath, for he fills me with bitterness.

9:19  If it is a matter of strength, most certainly he is the strong one! And if it is a matter of justice, he will say, 'Who will summon me?'

9:20  Although I am innocent, my mouth would condemn me; although I am blameless, it would declare me perverse.

9:21  I am blameless. I do not know myself. I despise my life.

9:22  "It is all one! That is why I say, 'He destroys the blameless and the guilty.'

9:23  If a scourge brings sudden death, he mocks at the despair of the innocent.

9:24  If a land has been given into the hand of a wicked man, he covers the faces of its judges; if it is not he, then who is it?

9:25  "My days are swifter than a runner, they speed by without seeing happiness.

9:26  They glide by like reed boats, like an eagle that swoops down on its prey.

9:27  If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will change my expression and be cheerful,'

9:28  I dread all my sufferings, for I know that you do not hold me blameless.

9:29  If I am guilty, why then weary myself in vain?

9:30  If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands clean with lye,

9:31  then you plunge me into a slimy pit and my own clothes abhor me.

9:32  For he is not a human being like I am, that I might answer him, that we might come together in judgment.

9:33  Nor is there an arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both,

9:34  who would take his rod away from me so that his terror would not make me afraid.

9:35  Then would I speak and not fear him, but it is not so with me.