微读圣经

Job Chides His Accusers

1Then Job responded,

2“No doubt you are the [only wise] people [in the world],

And wisdom will die with you!

3But I have intelligence and understanding as well as you;

I am not inferior to you.

Who does not know such things as these [of God’s wisdom and might]?

4I am a joke to my friends;

I, one whom God answered when he called upon Him—

A just and blameless man is a joke [and laughed to scorn].

5He who is at ease has contempt for misfortune,

But misfortune is ready [and anxiously waiting] for those whose feet slip.

6The tents of the destroyers prosper;

And those who provoke God are [apparently] secure,

Whom God brings into their power.

7“Now ask the animals, and let them teach you [that God does not deal with His creatures according to their character];

And ask the birds of the air, and let them tell you;

8Or speak to the earth [with its many forms of life], and it will teach you;

And let the fish of the sea declare [this truth] to you.

9Who among all these does not recognize [in all these things that good and evil are randomly scattered throughout nature and human life]

That the hand of the Lord has done this,

10In whose hand is the life of every living thing,

And the breath of all mankind?

11Does the ear not put words to the test,

Just as the palate tastes its food [distinguishing between the desirable and the undesirable]?

12With the aged [you say] is wisdom,

And with Lit length of days.long life is understanding.

Job Speaks of the Power of God

13“But [only] with Him are [perfect] wisdom and might;

He [alone] has [true] counsel and understanding.

14Behold, He tears down, and it cannot be rebuilt;

He imprisons a man, and there can be no release.

15Behold, He restrains the waters, and they dry up;

Again, He sends the waters out, and they overwhelm and devastate the earth.

16With Him are might and sound wisdom,

The misled and the misleader are His [and in His power].

17He makes [great and scheming] counselors walk barefoot

And makes fools of judges.

18He loosens the bond of kings

And binds their loins with a loincloth.

19He makes priests walk barefoot,

And He overturns men firmly seated and secure.

20He deprives the trusted ones of speech

And takes away the discernment and discretion of the aged.

21He pours contempt on princes and nobles

And loosens the belt of the strong [disabling them].

22He uncovers mysteries [that are difficult to grasp and understand] out of the darkness

And brings black gloom and the shadow of death into light.

23He makes nations great, and He destroys them;

He enlarges nations, and leads them away [captive].

24He removes intelligence and understanding from the leaders of the people of the earth

And makes them wander and move blindly in a pathless waste.

25They grope in darkness without light,

And He makes them stagger like a drunken man.”