Job 8

¹¹Now when Job’s three friends—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—heard about all this adversity that had come upon him, each of them came from his home, and they met together to go and sympathize with Job and comfort him.

²⁶Do you intend to correct my words, and treat as wind my cry of despair?

²“Does a wise man answer with empty counsel or fill his belly with the hot east wind?

¹¹Then the Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. Behold, the Lord is about to pass by.” And a great and mighty wind tore into the mountains and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

¹¹Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

²“How long until you end these speeches? Show some sense, and then we can talk.

²“Should this stream of words go unanswered and such a speaker be vindicated?

³Should your babbling put others to silence? Will you scoff without rebuke?

⁷And now, may the fear of the Lord be upon you. Be careful what you do, for with the Lord our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery.”

⁴He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.

²⁵Far be it from You to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”

²⁰Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to his ways, O house of Israel.”

¹⁰Therefore listen to me, O men of understanding. Far be it from God to do wrong, and from the Almighty to act unjustly.

¹¹For according to a man’s deeds He repays him; according to a man’s ways He brings consequences.

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.”

⁵But if our unrighteousness highlights the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict His wrath on us? I am speaking in human terms.

⁵And when the days of feasting were over, Job would send for his children to purify them, rising early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of them. For Job thought, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.

⁴His sons are far from safety, crushed in court without a defender.

¹⁸While he was still speaking, another messenger came and reported: “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,

¹⁹when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on the young people and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

¹³because we are about to destroy this place. For the outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that He has sent us to destroy it.”

¹⁴So Lot went out and spoke to the sons-in-law who were pledged in marriage to his daughters. “Get up,” he said. “Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

¹⁶The roots beneath him dry up, and the branches above him wither away.

¹⁷The memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the land.

¹³But the men of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against the Lord.

⁷Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

⁸Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

⁷Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.

⁸For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

¹³As for you, if you direct your heart and lift up your hands to Him,

⁶Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.

⁷Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.

⁷Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice,

⁸do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness,

¹²And in his distress, Manasseh sought the favor of the Lord his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his fathers.

¹³And when he prayed to Him, the Lord received his plea and heard his petition. So He brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.

⁹Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Wake up as in days past, as in generations of old. Was it not You who cut Rahab to pieces, who pierced through the dragon?

¹⁰Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their labor.

²⁴You will know that your tent is secure, and find nothing amiss when inspecting your home.

⁶Arise, O Lord, in Your anger; rise up against the fury of my enemies. Awake, my God, and ordain judgment.

⁸The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.

¹⁷yet my hands are free of violence and my prayer is pure.

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.

¹³And he also had seven sons and three daughters.

³¹He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and planted in his field.

³²Although it is the smallest of all seeds, yet it grows into the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

²⁰Listen to counsel and accept discipline, that you may be wise the rest of your days.

¹⁰For who has despised the day of small things? But these seven eyes of the Lord, which scan the whole earth, will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.”

¹⁸The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until midday.

⁷It will be a unique day known only to the Lord, without day or night; but when evening comes, there will be light.

³²Indeed, ask now from one end of the heavens to the other about the days that long preceded you, from the day that God created man on earth: Has anything as great as this ever happened or been reported?

¹⁸what was declared by wise men and was not concealed from their fathers,

⁷Remember the days of old; consider the years long past. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will inform you.

⁴For everything that was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.

¹¹Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

¹For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us the work You did in their days, in the days of old.

¹⁵For we are foreigners and strangers in Your presence, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.

⁴Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.

²Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

¹¹My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.

⁹“My travels have lasted 130 years,” Jacob replied. “My years have been few and hard, and they have not matched the years of the travels of my fathers.”

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.

¹⁵The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks it out.

³⁵The good man brings good things out of his good store of treasure, and the evil man brings evil things out of his evil store of treasure.

⁷And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

⁴One generation will commend Your works to the next, and will proclaim Your mighty acts—

¹⁹Teach them to your children, speaking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

⁷I thought that age should speak, and many years should teach wisdom.

³But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.

⁵The waters of the Nile will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and empty.

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

⁶He will be like a shrub in the desert; he will not see when prosperity comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.

⁶May they be like grass on the rooftops, which withers before it can grow,

⁷unable to fill the hands of the reaper, or the arms of the binder of sheaves.

¹⁰But the one who is rich should exult in his low position, because he will pass away like a flower of the field.

¹¹For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its flower falls and its beauty is lost. So too, the rich man will fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

²⁰The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.

²⁴For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,

¹⁷The wicked will return to Sheol—all the nations who forget God.

¹⁶Moreover, this will be my salvation, for no godless man can appear before Him.

²⁰But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them; they will hope for their last breath.”

²⁸The hope of the righteous is joy, but the expectations of the wicked will perish.

³⁴For the company of the godless will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of bribery.

¹In the meantime, a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling one another. Jesus began to speak first to His disciples: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

²There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, and nothing hidden that will not be made known.

⁵They hatch the eggs of vipers and weave a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die; crack one open, and a viper is hatched.

⁶Their cobwebs cannot be made into clothing, and they cannot cover themselves with their works. Their deeds are sinful deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands.

¹⁸The house he built is like a moth’s cocoon, like a hut set up by a watchman.

⁴⁷I will show you what he is like who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them:

⁴⁸He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid his foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the torrent crashed against that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.

²⁴Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

²⁵The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because its foundation was on the rock.

²⁸The hope of the righteous is joy, but the expectations of the wicked will perish.

¹¹Their graves are their eternal homes—their dwellings for endless generations—even though their lands were their namesakes.

¹⁴He is torn from the shelter of his tent and is marched off to the king of terrors.

¹¹It sent out its branches to the Sea, and its shoots toward the River.

⁷Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?

⁸Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes.

³⁵I have seen a wicked, ruthless man flourishing like a well-rooted native tree,

³⁶yet he passed away and was no more; though I searched, he could not be found.

³For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴They have no struggle in their death; their bodies are well-fed.

³I have seen a fool taking root, but suddenly his house was cursed.

¹⁶The Lord once called you a flourishing olive tree, beautiful with well-formed fruit. But with a mighty roar He will set it on fire, and its branches will be consumed.

¹⁶The roots beneath him dry up, and the branches above him wither away.

²⁴Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁰As they were walking back in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from its roots.

¹⁹My roots will spread out to the waters, and the dew will rest nightly on my branches.

²⁴No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner have their stems taken root in the ground, than He blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like stubble.

¹Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?

²You planted them, and they have taken root. They have grown and produced fruit. You are ever on their lips, but far from their hearts.

¹⁰He never returns to his house; his place remembers him no more.

⁸The eye that beholds me will no longer see me. You will look for me, but I will be no more.

³⁶yet he passed away and was no more; though I searched, he could not be found.

⁷that though the wicked sprout like grass, and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed.

⁹The eye that saw him will see him no more, and his place will no longer behold him.

¹⁸Surely You set them on slick ground; You cast them down into ruin.

¹⁹How suddenly they are laid waste, completely swept away by terrors!

⁵the triumph of the wicked has been brief and the joy of the godless momentary?

⁷He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the dump

⁸He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them among princes and bestows on them a throne of honor. For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s, and upon them He has set the world.

²⁴Then all the trees of the field will know that I am the Lord. I bring the tall tree down and make the low tree tall. I dry up the green tree and make the withered tree flourish. I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it.’”

²⁰The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.

²¹But since he has no root, he remains for only a season. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.

⁹And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.

⁷Consider now, I plead: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Or where have the upright been destroyed?

³⁷Consider the blameless and observe the upright, for posterity awaits the man of peace.

²⁴Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed, for the Lord is holding his hand.

¹This is what the Lord says to Cyrus His anointed, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him, to disarm kings, to open the doors before him, so that the gates will not be shut:

¹⁴For the Lord will not forsake His people; He will never abandon His heritage.

³⁰Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath.

²Then our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with shouts of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”

⁶Then Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears of this will laugh with me.”

⁶He who goes out weeping, bearing a trail of seed, will surely return with shouts of joy, carrying sheaves of grain.

¹¹Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous ones; shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

²¹Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

¹¹And they sang responsively with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord: “For He is good; for His loving devotion to Israel endures forever.” Then all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord had been laid.

¹²But many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads who had seen the first temple wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple. Still, many others shouted joyfully.

¹⁸I will clothe his enemies with shame, but the crown upon him will gleam.”

²⁶May those who gloat in my distress be ashamed and confounded; may those who exalt themselves over me be clothed in shame and reproach.

²⁹May my accusers be clothed with disgrace; may they wear their shame like a robe.

¹⁴He is torn from the shelter of his tent and is marched off to the king of terrors.

¹⁸If he is uprooted from his place, it will disown him, saying, ‘I never saw you.’

²¹Why do You not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For soon I will lie down in the dust; You will seek me, but I will be no more.”