1
“Behold, my eye has seen all, || My ear has heard, and it attends to it.
2
According to your knowledge I have known—also I. I am not more fallen than you.
3
Yet I speak for the Mighty One, || And I delight to argue for God.
4
And yet, you [are] forgers of falsehood, || Physicians of nothing—all of you,
5
O that you would keep perfectly silent, || And it would be to you for wisdom.
6
Please hear my argument, || And attend to the pleadings of my lips,
7
Do you speak perverseness for God? And do you speak deceit for Him?
8
Do you accept His face, if you strive for God?
9
Is [it] good that He searches you, || If, as one mocks at a man, you mock at Him?
10
He surely reproves you, if you accept faces in secret.
11
Does His excellence not terrify you? And His dread fall on you?
12
Your remembrances [are] allegories of ashes, || For high places of clay [are] your heights.
13
Keep silent from me, and I speak, || And pass over me what will.
14
Why do I take my flesh in my teeth? And my soul put in my hand?
15
Behold, He slays me—I do not wait! Only, I argue my ways to His face.
16
Also—He [is] to me for salvation, || For the profane do not come before Him.
17
Hear my word diligently, || And my declaration with your ears.
18
Now behold, I have set the cause in order, || I have known that I am righteous.
19
Who [is] he that strives with me? For now I keep silent and gasp.
Job's desperate prayer
20
Only two things, O God, do with me, || Then I am not hidden from Your face:
21
Put Your hand far off from me, || And do not let Your terror terrify me.
22
And You call, and I answer, || Or—I speak, and You answer me.
23
How many iniquities and sins do I have? Let me know my transgression and my sin.
24
Why do You hide Your face? And reckon me for an enemy to You?
25
Do You terrify a leaf driven away? And do You pursue the dry stubble?
26
For You write bitter things against me, || And cause me to possess iniquities of my youth,
27
And you put my feet in the stocks, || And observe all my paths—You set a print on the roots of my feet,
28
And he, as a rotten thing, wears away, || A moth has consumed him as a garment.”
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