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Job Replies: There Is No Arbiter

 Then Job answered and said:

² “Truly I know that it is so:
But how can a man be in the right before God?
³ If one wished to contend with him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand times.
⁴ He is wise in heart and mighty in strength
—who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—
⁵ he who removes mountains, and they know it not,
when he overturns them in his anger,
⁶ who shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble;
⁷ who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
who seals up the stars;
⁸ who alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the sea;
⁹ who made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
¹⁰ who does great things beyond searching out,
and marvelous things beyond number.
¹¹ Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not;
he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
¹² Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back?
Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

¹³ “God will not turn back his anger;
beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab.
¹⁴ How then can I answer him,
choosing my words with him?
¹⁵ Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him;
I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.^[a]
16 If I summoned him and he answered me,
I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.
¹⁷ For he crushes me with a tempest
and multiplies my wounds without cause;
¹⁸ he will not let me get my breath,
but fills me with bitterness.
¹⁹ If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty!
If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?^[b]
20 Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me;
though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.
²¹ I am blameless; I regard not myself;
I loathe my life.
²² It is all one; therefore I say,
‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’
²³ When disaster brings sudden death,
he mocks at the calamity^[c] of the innocent.
²⁴ The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;
he covers the faces of its judges—
if it is not he, who then is it?

²⁵ “My days are swifter than a runner;
they flee away; they see no good.
²⁶ They go by like skiffs of reed,
like an eagle swooping on the prey.
²⁷ If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,
I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’
²⁸ I become afraid of all my suffering,
for I know you will not hold me innocent.
²⁹ I shall be condemned;
why then do I labor in vain?
³⁰ If I wash myself with snow
and cleanse my hands with lye,
³¹ yet you will plunge me into a pit,
and my own clothes will abhor me.
³² For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,
that we should come to trial together.
³³ There is no^[d] arbiter between us,
who might lay his hand on us both.
³⁴ Let him take his rod away from me,
and let not dread of him terrify me.
³⁵ Then I would speak without fear of him,
for I am not so in myself.

Footnotes:

1. Job 9:15 Or to my judge
2. Job 9:19 Compare Septuagint; Hebrew me
3. Job 9:23 The meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain
4. Job 9:33 Or Would that there were an

Cross references:

1. Job 9:2 : ch. 4:17
2. Job 9:3 : [ch. 10:2; Ps. 143:2; Rom. 3:20]
3. Job 9:4 : [ch. 12:13; 36:5]
4. Job 9:4 : [Ex. 7:13; 32:9]
5. Job 9:6 : Isa. 2:19, 21; 13:13; Hag. 2:6, 21; Heb. 12:26
6. Job 9:6 : ch. 26:11; Ps. 75:3
7. Job 9:8 : ch. 26:7; Ps. 104:2; Jer. 10:12; 51:15; Zech. 12:1
8. Job 9:9 : Gen. 1:16
9. Job 9:9 : ch. 38:32
10. Job 9:9 : ch. 38:31; Amos 5:8
11. Job 9:9 : ch. 37:9
12. Job 9:10 : See ch. 5:9
13. Job 9:11 : ch. 23:8, 9
14. Job 9:12 : ch. 11:10; 23:13
15. Job 9:12 : Isa. 45:9; [Jer. 18:6; Rom. 9:20]
16. Job 9:13 : ch. 26:12; 87:4; 89:10; Isa. 30:7; 51:9
17. Job 9:14 : ch. 15:16
18. Job 9:14 : ver. 3
19. Job 9:15 : ch. 10:15
20. Job 9:15 : ch. 8:5
21. Job 9:17 : ch. 2:3; [ch. 34:6]
22. Job 9:19 : [ver. 4]
23. Job 9:19 : Jer. 49:19; 50:44
24. Job 9:20 : ch. 15:6
25. Job 9:21 : ch. 1:1
26. Job 9:21 : ch. 7:16 (Heb.); [ch. 10:1]
27. Job 9:22 : Eccles. 9:2, 3; Ezek. 21:3
28. Job 9:23 : Isa. 10:26
29. Job 9:24 : [ch. 10:3]
30. Job 9:24 : See ch. 12:17
31. Job 9:24 : [ch. 24:25]
32. Job 9:25 : ch. 7:6
33. Job 9:25 : [2 Chr. 30:6; Jer. 51:31]
34. Job 9:26 : [Isa. 18:2]
35. Job 9:26 : Hab. 1:8
36. Job 9:27 : [ch. 7:13]
37. Job 9:27 : Ps. 39:13
38. Job 9:28 : [Ps. 119:120]
39. Job 9:28 : ch. 10:14
40. Job 9:29 : [ch. 10:2]
41. Job 9:30 : Isa. 1:25; Jer. 2:22; See ch. 22:30
42. Job 9:31 : ch. 19:19; 30:10
43. Job 9:32 : Eccles. 6:10; Rom. 9:20
44. Job 9:33 : ver. 19; 1 Sam. 2:25; [ch. 16:21]
45. Job 9:34 : [Ps. 39:10]
46. Job 9:34 : ch. 21:9; Ps. 89:32; Isa. 10:24
47. Job 9:34 : [ch. 13:21; 33:7]