1Then Job answered:
2"I know that this is true. But how can a person be right before God?"
3"If someone wanted to argue with him, he could not answer him one time in a thousand."
4"He is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against him and come out well?"
5"He moves the mountains, and they do not know it; he overturns them in his anger."
6"He shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble."
7"He commands the sun, and it does not rise; he seals up the stars."
8"He alone spreads out the heavens, and walks on the waves of the sea."
9"He made Arcturus, Orion and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south."
10"He does great things that cannot be searched out, and wonders without number."
11"Look, he goes past me, and I do not see him; he moves on, but I do not notice him."
12"Look, he takes away. Who can stop him? Who will say to him, 'What are you doing?'"
13"If God will not turn back his anger, the proud helpers bow low under him."
14"How much less can I answer him, or choose my words to argue with him?"
15"Even if I were righteous, I would not answer him. I would beg my judge for mercy."
16"If I had called and he had answered me, I still would not believe that he had listened to my voice."
17"For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause."
18"He will not let me catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness."
19"If it is a matter of strength, look, he is strong. If of judgment, who will set me a time to plead?"
20"If I say I am right, my own mouth would condemn me. If I say, 'I am perfect,' it would prove me crooked."
21"Though I were perfect, I would not know my own soul. I would despise my life."
22"This is one thing, and so I said it: 'He destroys the perfect and the wicked.'"
23"If the whip kills suddenly, he laughs at the trial 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, then where is he, and who is he?"
25"Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away; they see no good."
26"They have passed by like fast ships, like the eagle that rushes down on its prey."
27"If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will put away my sad face and cheer myself,'"
28"then I am afraid of all my sorrows. I know that you will not hold me innocent."
29"If I am wicked, why do I labour in vain?"
30"If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean,"
31"yet you will plunge me into the ditch, and my own clothes will hate me."
32"For he is not a man, as I am, that I could answer him, or that we could come together for judgment."
33"There is no one to settle it between us, who might lay his hand on us both."
34"Let him take his rod away from me, and let the fear of him not terrify me."
35"Then I would speak and not fear him; but it is not so with me."