Job 40

¹Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

⁶Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

¹⁶“For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

¹⁴Whom did He consult to enlighten Him, and who taught Him the paths of justice? Who imparted knowledge to Him and showed Him the way of understanding?

³⁴“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?”

³⁵“Who has first given to God, that God should repay him?”

¹³Why do you complain to Him that He answers nothing a man asks?

⁸The One who vindicates Me is near. Who will dare to contend with Me? Let us confront each other! Who has a case against Me? Let him approach Me!

⁹Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?

¹⁰Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What have you begotten?’ or to his mother, ‘What have you brought forth?’”

³²If you have foolishly exalted yourself or if you have plotted evil, put your hand over your mouth.

⁹The princes refrained from speaking and covered their mouths with their hands.

⁵Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth.

⁶Therefore I despise myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.”

¹⁹“Be quiet,” they told him. “Put your hand over your mouth and come with us and be a father and a priest to us. Is it better for you to be a priest for the house of one person or a priest for a tribe and family in Israel?”

²⁷Then Abraham answered, “Now that I have ventured to speak to the Lord—though I am but dust and ashes—

¹⁴For God speaks in one way and in another, yet no one notices.

¹¹God has spoken once; I have heard this twice: that power belongs to God,

¹⁵For even if I were right, I could not answer. I could only beg my Judge for mercy.

³If one wished to contend with God, he could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

³¹Suppose someone says to God, ‘I have endured my punishment; I will offend no more.

³²Teach me what I cannot see; if I have done wrong, I will not do it again.’

¹Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

³Our God approaches and will not be silent! Consuming fire precedes Him, and a tempest rages around Him.

⁴He summons the heavens above, and the earth, that He may judge His people:

¹⁰But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and its works will be laid bare.

¹¹Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to conduct yourselves in holiness and godliness

¹⁸For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom, and storm;

¹⁹to a trumpet blast or to a voice that made its hearers beg that no further word be spoken.

³Now brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall inform Me.

⁴You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak. I will question you, and you shall inform Me.’

³If only I knew where to find Him, so that I could go to His seat.

⁴I would plead my case before Him and fill my mouth with arguments.

²²Then call me, and I will answer, or let me speak, and You can reply.

⁴Certainly not! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that You may be proved right when You speak and victorious when You judge.”

²This kindled the anger of Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram. He burned with anger against Job for justifying himself rather than God,

¹⁸Your covenant with death will be dissolved, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be trampled by it.

³Does it please You to oppress me, to reject the work of Your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked?

⁴Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be proved right when You speak and blameless when You judge.

⁵For Job has declared, ‘I am righteous, yet God has deprived me of justice.

⁶Would I lie about my case? My wound is incurable, though I am without transgression.’

⁴Then there comes a roaring sound; He thunders with His majestic voice. He does not restrain the lightning when His voice resounds.

⁵God thunders wondrously with His voice; He does great things we cannot comprehend.

⁹Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?

¹³Mighty is Your arm; strong is Your hand. Your right hand is exalted.

¹⁰You crushed Rahab like a carcass; You scattered Your enemies with Your mighty arm.

⁶Your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power; Your right hand, O Lord, has shattered the enemy.

²²Are we trying to provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?

¹The Lord reigns! He is robed in majesty; the Lord has clothed and armed Himself with strength. The world indeed is firmly established; it cannot be moved.

⁴For the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He adorns the afflicted with salvation.

¹⁷He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on His head; He put on garments of vengeance and wrapped Himself in a cloak of zeal.

¹⁹Do you give strength to the horse or adorn his neck with a mane?

¹Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty.

²He wraps Himself in light as with a garment; He stretches out the heavens like a tent,

¹¹Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the splendor and the majesty, for everything in heaven and on earth belongs to You. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom, and You are exalted as head over all.

³⁷Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, for all His works are true and all His ways are just. And He is able to humble those who walk in pride.

¹¹The proud look of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

¹²For the Day of the Lord of Hosts will come against all the proud and lofty, against all that is exalted—it will be humbled—

¹⁷So the pride of man will be brought low, and the loftiness of men will be humbled; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day,

⁶Who can withstand His indignation? Who can endure His burning anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; even rocks are shattered before Him.

¹²So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes.

¹³For he says: ‘By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, for I am clever. I have removed the boundaries of nations and plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their rulers.

²²It hurls itself against him without mercy as he flees headlong from its power.

³“I have trodden the winepress alone, and no one from the nations was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and trod them down in My fury; their blood spattered My garments, and all My clothes were stained.

³Then you will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the Lord of Hosts.

¹²With God we will perform with valor, and He will trample our enemies.

⁷The Lord sends poverty and wealth; He humbles and He exalts.

⁵They will be like mighty men in battle, trampling the enemy in the mire of the streets. They will fight because the Lord is with them, and they will put the horsemen to shame.

⁶I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

¹⁰Go into the rocks and hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the splendor of His majesty.

¹⁴Like sheep they are destined for Sheol. Death will be their shepherd. The upright will rule them in the morning, and their form will decay in Sheol, far from their lofty abode.

¹³The godless in heart harbor resentment; even when He binds them, they do not cry for help.

¹³If only You would hide me in Sheol and conceal me until Your anger has passed! If only You would appoint a time for me and then remember me!

⁸Just as the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was reclining. The king exclaimed, “Would he actually assault the queen while I am in the palace?” As soon as the words had left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face.

⁴⁴The man who had been dead came out with his hands and feet bound in strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a cloth. “Unwrap him and let him go,” Jesus told them.

⁶For at just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

³For it was not by their sword that they took the land; their arm did not bring them victory. It was by Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your face, because You favored them.

⁴But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!

⁶For I do not trust in my bow, nor does my sword save me.

²⁹He gives power to the faint and increases the strength of the weak.

¹⁴He makes the grass grow for the livestock and provides crops for man to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth:

²⁰The hills yield him their produce, while all the beasts of the field play nearby.

²⁴And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.

²⁵God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

⁸He roams the mountains for pasture, searching for any green thing.

²³The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable.

⁴For I knew that you are stubborn; your neck is iron and your forehead is bronze.

¹²Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that You must keep me under guard?

³³Nothing on earth is his equal—a creature devoid of fear!

²⁴How many are Your works, O Lord! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures.

¹³By His breath the skies were cleared; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.

¹In that day the Lord will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent—Leviathan the coiling serpent—and He will slay the dragon of the sea.

¹²If one does not repent, God will sharpen His sword; He has bent and strung His bow.

²⁶There the ships pass, and Leviathan, which You formed to frolic there.

¹⁴He makes the grass grow for the livestock and provides crops for man to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth:

¹⁵Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you. He feeds on grass like an ox.

⁸who covers the sky with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the hills.

⁹He provides food for the animals, and for the young ravens when they call.

⁶The canals will stink; the streams of Egypt will trickle and dry up; the reeds and rushes will wither.

⁷The bulrushes by the Nile, by the mouth of the river, and all the fields sown along the Nile, will wither, blow away, and be no more.

⁷The parched ground will become a pool, the thirsty land springs of water. In the haunt where jackals once lay, there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.

⁷So they carry their wealth and belongings over the Brook of the Willows.

⁴⁰On the first day you are to gather the fruit of majestic trees, the branches of palm trees, and the boughs of leafy trees and of willows of the brook. And you are to rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.

⁵He took some of the seed of the land and planted it in fertile soil; he placed it by abundant waters and set it out like a willow.

¹⁰And Lot looked out and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan, all the way to Zoar, was well watered like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)

²⁵I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

¹⁶So this is what the Lord God says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will never be shaken.

¹⁵Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season. But as soon as the priests carrying the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge,

⁸I would hurry to my shelter, far from this raging tempest.”

¹“Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook or tie down his tongue with a rope?

²Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?