“Listen now to my argument, and be attentive to my lips’ contentions.

as water wears away stones, and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy man’s hope.

They are soaked by mountain rains and huddle in the rocks because they lack shelter.

“Surely you know that it has been from old, ever since humankind was placed on the earth,

A tempest blows out from its chamber, icy cold from the driving winds.

For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked lived?’

The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-Happuch.

He pours contempt on noblemen and disarms the powerful.

Do you listen in on God’s secret council? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?

“Pay attention to this, Job! Stand still and consider the wonders God works.

Is not your piety your confidence, and your blameless ways your hope?

“For you took pledges from your brothers for no reason, and you stripped the clothing from the naked.

just as I was in my most productive time, when God’s intimate friendship was experienced in my tent,

Smoke streams from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning rushes.

Fear the sword yourselves, for wrath brings the punishment by the sword, so that you may know that there is judgment.”

From the city the dying groan, and the wounded cry out for help, but God charges no one with wrongdoing.

But God drags off the mighty by his power; when God rises up against him, he has no faith in his life.

Why do you contend against him, that he does not answer all a person’s words?

From whose womb does the ice emerge, and the frost from the sky, who gives birth to it,

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born.