Job 34

2 “Hear me, you wise men;

you who know, give ear to what is good.

3 For the ear tests words

as the throat tastes food.

4 Let us choose judgment for ourselves;

let us decide among ourselves what is good.

5 For Job has said, ‘I am righteous;

the Lord has taken my case away from me.

6 He has dealt falsely with my case;

the arrow in me is savage, and I did no wrong.’

7 What man is like Job,

drinking scorn down like water,

8 having done no sin, nothing ungodly,

having shared no road with men who do lawless deeds

and never walked with the ungodly?

9 Do not say, ‘There will be no reckoning for a man.’

A reckoning does come to him from the Lord.

10 So hear me, you who understand in your hearts:

far be it from me to act in an ungodly way before the Lord,

or to trouble what is righteous before the Almighty.

11 He pays a man back according to what each of them does,

and he will find him on his own path.

12 Do you suppose the Lord will do what is out of place,

or that the Almighty will trouble judgment?

13 He is the one who made the earth.

Who else makes all that is under heaven, and everything in it?

14 If he wanted to hold it all in

and keep the breath beside himself,

15 all flesh would die together,

and every mortal would go back to the earth he was shaped from.

16 If you will not be corrected, hear this;

give ear to the sound of these words.

17 Look at the one who hates lawless things,

who destroys the wicked and is righteous forever.

18 It is an ungodly man who says to a king, ‘You break the law,’

and to the rulers, ‘You are the most ungodly of all.’

19 But the Lord is not overawed by the face of a man of rank,

and does not know how to give the great such honor

that their faces are marveled at.

20 Their crying out and begging a man will come to nothing,

for they acted against the law when the helpless were pushed aside.

21 For he is the watcher of what people do,

and nothing they carry out escapes him,

22 and there will be no place for those who do lawless deeds to hide.

23 For he will lay nothing more on a man;

the Lord watches over them all.

24 He takes hold of things past tracking,

glorious and extraordinary, beyond counting.

25 He knows what they do;

he will turn night around on them, and they will be brought low.

26 He has put out the ungodly,

and they stand in plain sight before him,

27 because they turned aside from the law of God

and did not recognize his rules,

28 so that they brought the cry of the needy man before him;

and he will hear the cry of the poor.

29 And he will grant quiet — and who will condemn?

He will hide his face — and who will see him?

And it holds against a nation and against one man alike,

30 when he sets a man who is only playing a part to rule as king

because a people is hard to handle.

31 For there is the man who says to the Strong One,

‘I have taken what was mine; I will not seize a pledge.

32 I will look apart from myself; you show me.

If I have done wrong, I will not do it again.’

33 Will he exact payment for it from you,

seeing that you push it away,

seeing that you will choose and not I?

Say what you know.

34 So people who understand in their hearts will say this,

and a wise man has heard my word.

35 But Job has not spoken with understanding,

and his words are not spoken with knowledge.

36 All the same, learn, Job:

give no more answers back like the foolish,

37 so that we do not add to our sins.

Lawlessness will be counted against us

for speaking many words in front of the Lord.”