Job 1

¹¹See how blessed we consider those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen the outcome from the Lord. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

¹⁴then even if these three men—Noah, Daniel, and Job—were in it, their righteousness could deliver only themselves, declares the Lord God.

²⁰then as surely as I live, declares the Lord God, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. Their righteousness could deliver only themselves.

²⁸And He said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’”

³Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.”

⁹This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.

³Children are indeed a heritage from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward.

⁴Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are children born in one’s youth.

¹³And he also had seven sons and three daughters.

³Your wife will be like a fruitful vine flourishing within your house, your sons like olive shoots sitting around your table.

¹³Be silent, and I will speak. Then let come to me what may.

³⁸He blesses them, and they multiply greatly; He does not let their herds diminish.

¹¹Haman recounted to them his glorious wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honored and promoted him over the other officials and servants.

¹²So the Lord blessed Job’s latter days more than his first. He owned 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.

²²The blessing of the Lord enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it.

³⁰Solomon’s wisdom was greater than that of all the men of the East, greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.

³Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east would come up and invade them,

²⁵I chose their course and presided as chief. So I dwelt as a king among his troops, as a comforter of the mourners.

⁷And Balaam lifted up an oracle, saying: “Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the mountains of the east. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘put a curse on Jacob for me; come and denounce Israel!’

¹Continue in brotherly love.

¹A song of ascents. Of David. Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!

⁸So now, take seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. Then My servant Job will pray for you, for I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken accurately about Me, as My servant Job has.”

²⁰Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. And taking from every kind of clean animal and clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.

⁵“In peace,” he replied. “I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

²So Jacob told his household and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your garments.

³Then let us arise and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to God, who answered me in my day of distress. He has been with me wherever I have gone.”

¹⁸Pray in the Spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition. To this end, stay alert with all perseverance in your prayers for all the saints.

⁴When your children sinned against Him, He gave them over to their rebellion.

¹On another day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before Him.

⁷while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

¹Then the angel showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.

⁹And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

¹⁰And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down—he who accuses them day and night before our God.

¹⁹Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left.

¹Then Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.

⁸Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

²“Where have you come from?” said the Lord to Satan. “From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.”

⁴³When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it passes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.

¹²Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea; with great fury the devil has come down to you, knowing he has only a short time.”

¹³And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

⁹And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

⁸and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to assemble them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the seashore.

³Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.”

¹There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And this man was blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil.

¹³To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech.

⁷But this is not so with My servant Moses; he is faithful in all My house.

⁸I speak with him face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you unafraid to speak against My servant Moses?”

²⁵Neither before nor after Josiah was there any king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, according to all the Law of Moses.

¹⁶Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil!

⁸For physical exercise is of limited value, but godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for the present life and for the one to come.

²⁶What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

⁶Of course, godliness with contentment is great gain.

²¹saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

¹⁴Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways.

¹⁵Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’

¹⁰“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

⁷The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and he delivers them.

⁵For I will be a wall of fire around it, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory within it.’”

⁵who through faith are shielded by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

²And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the Lord your God:

³You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

²²The blessing of the Lord enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it.

⁸For this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “After His Glory has sent Me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye—

⁵But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”

²¹Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.

¹¹and curse the God of heaven for their pains and sores. Yet they did not repent of their deeds.

⁹And the people were scorched by intense heat, and they cursed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues. Yet they did not repent and give Him glory.

²¹And great hailstones weighing almost a hundred pounds each rained down on them from above. And men cursed God for the plague of hail, because it was so horrendous.

¹³“Your words against Me have been harsh,” says the Lord. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we spoken against You?’

¹⁴You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What have we gained by keeping His requirements and walking mournfully before the Lord of Hosts?

³¹Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you like wheat.

³²But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

⁷or because of these surpassingly great revelations. So to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.

³⁵The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in His hands.

³⁶Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.”

¹³No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide an escape, so that you can stand up under it.

¹¹Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed Me over to you is guilty of greater sin.”

⁴“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give up all he owns in exchange for his life.

⁵But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”

¹Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.

³⁴But watch yourselves, or your hearts will be weighed down by dissipation, drunkenness, and the worries of life—and that day will spring upon you suddenly like a snare.

¹²For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.

²⁷People were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

²⁸It was the same in the days of Lot: People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.

¹⁹Then I will say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take it easy. Eat, drink, and be merry!”’

²⁰But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be required of you. Then who will own what you have accumulated?’

⁴Job’s sons would take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.

¹⁷The messenger answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are both dead, and the ark of God has been captured.”

³¹One courier races to meet another, and messenger follows messenger, to announce to the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end.

¹³Then a messenger came to David and reported, “The hearts of the men of Israel are with Absalom.”

⁷The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. And the sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan.

¹⁹The caravans of Tema look for water; the travelers of Sheba hope to find it.

⁸I will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans—to a distant nation.” Indeed, the Lord has spoken.

²⁰But one of the sons of Ahimelech son of Ahitub escaped. His name was Abiathar, and he fled to David.

²¹And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord.

⁴²accompanied by the sound of a carefree crowd. Drunkards were brought in from the desert along with men from the rabble, who put bracelets on your wrists and beautiful crowns on your head.

³Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were the Asshurites, the Letushites, and the Leummites.

¹²Again Elijah replied, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed the captain and his fifty men.

²⁴Then the Lord rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens.

²So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died in the presence of the Lord.

³⁸Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and it licked up the water in the trench.

¹Soon the people began to complain about their hardship in the hearing of the Lord, and when He heard them, His anger was kindled, and fire from the Lord blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.

²And the people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down.

¹⁰Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed the captain and his fifty men.

²⁸During his father Terah’s lifetime, Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

⁶For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans—that ruthless and impetuous nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.

³¹And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there.

¹³Look at the land of the Chaldeans—a people now of no account. The Assyrians destined it for the desert creatures; they set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They brought it to ruin.

¹⁵the Sabeans swooped down and took them away. They put the servants to the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

³“Where have you come from?” David asked. “I have escaped from the Israelite camp,” he replied.

⁴Job’s sons would take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.

¹³One day, while Job’s sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,

¹⁹Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him from them all.

¹²Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the Lord made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?

⁹He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.

¹⁰He tears me down on every side until I am gone; He uproots my hope like a tree.

²“Even today my complaint is bitter. His hand is heavy despite my groaning.

⁴When the islanders saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “Surely this man is a murderer. Although he was saved from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.”

³⁰The rest of them fled into the city of Aphek, where the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand of the remaining men. Ben-hadad also fled to the city and hid in an inner room.

²in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

³⁰Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people in it. So in his death he killed more than he had killed in his life.

³²They sent the robe of many colors to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe or not.”

³³His father recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! A vicious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!”

¹¹At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A searing wind from the barren heights in the desert blows toward the daughter of My people, but not to winnow or to sift;

¹²a wind too strong for that comes from Me. Now I also pronounce judgments against them.”

⁶Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, so that in due time He may exalt you.

¹⁶David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted and went into his house and spent the night lying in sackcloth on the ground.

¹⁷The elders of his household stood beside him to help him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat anything with them.

³⁴Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son many days.

³When I heard this report, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled out some hair from my head and beard, and sat down in horror.

²⁹When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes,

¹⁸Then I fell down before the Lord for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord and provoking Him to anger.

¹⁵As a man came from his mother’s womb, so he will depart again, naked as he arrived. He takes nothing for his labor to carry in his hands.

⁷For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot carry anything out of it.

¹⁸Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

¹⁷Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow.

¹⁰“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

¹⁷For when he dies, he will carry nothing away; his abundance will not follow him down.

¹²Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.

¹⁰“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

⁷so that the proven character of your faith—more precious than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

⁴Allow perseverance to finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

²⁰But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?”

¹⁸who says to kings, ‘You are worthless!’ and to nobles, ‘You are wicked,’

¹⁹who is not partial to princes and does not favor rich over poor? For they are all the work of His hands.