The Mystery of Wisdom

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

²“Can a man be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.

³Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that you are righteous? Or does it benefit him that you make your ways perfect?

⁴Is it for your piety that he reproves you, that he enters with you into judgment?

⁵Isn’t your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your iniquities.

⁶For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing.

⁷You haven’t given water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry.

⁸But as for the mighty man, he had the earth. The honorable man, he lived in it.

⁹You have sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.

¹⁰Therefore snares are around you. Sudden fear troubles you,

¹¹or darkness, so that you can not see, and floods of waters cover you.

¹²“Isn’t God in the heights of heaven? See the height of the stars, how high they are!

¹³You say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness?

¹⁴Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he doesn’t see. He walks on the vault of the sky.’

¹⁵Will you keep the old way, which wicked men have trodden,

¹⁶who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a stream,

¹⁷who said to God, ‘Depart from us!’ and, ‘What can the Almighty do for us?’

¹⁸Yet he filled their houses with good things, but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

¹⁹The righteous see it, and are glad. The innocent ridicule them,

²⁰saying, ‘Surely those who rose up against us are cut off. The fire has consumed their remnant.’

²¹“Acquaint yourself with him now, and be at peace. By it, good will come to you.

²²Please receive instruction from his mouth, and lay up his words in your heart.

²³If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up, if you put away unrighteousness far from your tents.

²⁴Lay your treasure in the dust, the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks.

²⁵The Almighty will be your treasure, and precious silver to you.

²⁶For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty, and will lift up your face to God.

²⁷You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you. You will pay your vows.

²⁸You will also decree a thing, and it will be established to you. Light will shine on your ways.

²⁹When they cast down, you will say, ‘be lifted up.’ He will save the humble person.

³⁰He will even deliver him who is not innocent. Yes, he will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”

¹Then Job answered,

²“Even today my complaint is rebellious. His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.

³Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat!

⁴I would set my cause in order before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.

⁵I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would tell me.

⁶Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No, but he would listen to me.

⁷There the upright might reason with him, so I should be delivered forever from my judge.

⁸“If I go east, he is not there. If I go west, I can’t find him.

⁹He works to the north, but I can’t see him. He turns south, but I can’t catch a glimpse of him.

¹⁰But he knows the way that I take. When he has tried me, I will come out like gold.

¹¹My foot has held fast to his steps. I have kept his way, and not turned away.

¹²I haven’t gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.

¹³But he stands alone, and who can oppose him? What his soul desires, even that he does.

¹⁴For he performs that which is appointed for me. Many such things are with him.

¹⁵Therefore I am terrified at his presence. When I consider, I am afraid of him.

¹⁶For God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me.

¹⁷Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither did he cover the thick darkness from my face.

¹“Why aren’t times laid up by the Almighty? Why don’t those who know him see his days?

²There are people who remove the landmarks. They violently take away flocks, and feed them.

³They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.

⁴They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves.

⁵Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children.

⁶They cut their food in the field. They glean the vineyard of the wicked.

⁷They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.

⁸They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter.

⁹There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor,

¹⁰so that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves.

¹¹They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.

¹²From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn’t regard the folly.

¹³“These are of those who rebel against the light. They don’t know its ways, nor stay in its paths.

¹⁴The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief.

¹⁵The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me.’ He disguises his face.

¹⁶In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don’t know the light.

¹⁷For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness, for they know the terrors of the thick darkness.

¹⁸“They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their portion is cursed on the earth. They don’t turn into the way of the vineyards.

¹⁹Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned.

²⁰The womb will forget him. The worm will feed sweetly on him. He will be no more remembered. Unrighteousness will be broken as a tree.

²¹He devours the barren who don’t bear. He shows no kindness to the widow.

²²Yet God preserves the mighty by his power. He rises up who has no assurance of life.

²³God gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways.

²⁴They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain.

²⁵If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?”

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,

²“Dominion and fear are with him. He makes peace in his high places.

³Can his armies be counted? On whom does his light not arise?

⁴How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?

⁵Behold, even the moon has no brightness, and the stars are not pure in his sight;

⁶How much less man, who is a worm, and the son of man, who is a worm!”

¹Then Job answered,

²“How have you helped him who is without power! How have you saved the arm that has no strength!

³How have you counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge!

⁴To whom have you uttered words? Whose spirit came out of you?

⁵“The departed spirits tremble, those beneath the waters and all that live in them.

⁶Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering.

⁷He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth on nothing.

⁸He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not burst under them.

⁹He encloses the face of his throne, and spreads his cloud on it.

¹⁰He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters, and to the confines of light and darkness.

¹¹The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his rebuke.

¹²He stirs up the sea with his power, and by his understanding he strikes through Rahab.

¹³By his Spirit the heavens are garnished. His hand has pierced the swift serpent.

¹⁴Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways. How small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?”

¹Job again took up his parable, and said,

²“As God lives, who has taken away my right, the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter

³(for the length of my life is still in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils);

⁴surely my lips will not speak unrighteousness, neither will my tongue utter deceit.

⁵Far be it from me that I should justify you. Until I die I will not put away my integrity from me.

⁶I hold fast to my righteousness, and will not let it go. My heart will not reproach me so long as I live.

⁷“Let my enemy be as the wicked. Let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous.

⁸For what is the hope of the godless, when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?

⁹Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him?

¹⁰Will he delight himself in the Almighty, and call on God at all times?

¹¹I will teach you about the hand of God. I will not conceal that which is with the Almighty.

¹²Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain?

¹³“This is the portion of a wicked man with God, the heritage of oppressors, which they receive from the Almighty.

¹⁴If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword. His offspring will not be satisfied with bread.

¹⁵Those who remain of him will be buried in death. His widows will make no lamentation.

¹⁶Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare clothing as the clay;

¹⁷he may prepare it, but the just will put it on, and the innocent will divide the silver.

¹⁸He builds his house as the moth, as a booth which the watchman makes.

¹⁹He lies down rich, but he will not do so again. He opens his eyes, and he is not.

²⁰Terrors overtake him like waters. A storm steals him away in the night.

²¹The east wind carries him away, and he departs. It sweeps him out of his place.

²²For it hurls at him, and does not spare, as he flees away from his hand.

²³Men will clap their hands at him, and will hiss him out of his place.

¹“Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold which they refine.

²Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted out of the ore.

³Man sets an end to darkness, and searches out, to the furthest bound, the stones of obscurity and of thick darkness.

⁴He breaks open a shaft away from where people live. They are forgotten by the foot. They hang far from men, they swing back and forth.

⁵As for the earth, out of it comes bread. Underneath it is turned up as it were by fire.

⁶Sapphires come from its rocks. It has dust of gold.

⁷That path no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon’s eye seen it.

⁸The proud animals have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed by there.

⁹He puts his hand on the flinty rock, and he overturns the mountains by the roots.

¹⁰He cuts out channels among the rocks. His eye sees every precious thing.

¹¹He binds the streams that they don’t trickle. The thing that is hidden he brings out to light.

¹²“But where will wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding?

¹³Man doesn’t know its price, and it isn’t found in the land of the living.

¹⁴The deep says, ‘It isn’t in me.’ The sea says, ‘It isn’t with me.’

¹⁵It can’t be gotten for gold, neither will silver be weighed for its price.

¹⁶It can’t be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire.

¹⁷Gold and glass can’t equal it, neither will it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold.

¹⁸No mention will be made of coral or of crystal. Yes, the price of wisdom is above rubies.

¹⁹The topaz of Ethiopia will not equal it. It won’t be valued with pure gold.

²⁰Where then does wisdom come from? Where is the place of understanding?

²¹Seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the birds of the sky.

²²Destruction and Death say, ‘We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.’

²³“God understands its way, and he knows its place.

²⁴For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole sky.

²⁵He establishes the force of the wind. Yes, he measures out the waters by measure.

²⁶When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder,

²⁷then he saw it, and declared it. He established it, yes, and searched it out.

²⁸To man he said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. To depart from evil is understanding.’”