Reading for August 24th

Job 7-9 (Listen)

Job Continues: My Life Has No Hope

“Has not man a hard service on earth,

and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?

Like a slave who longs for the shadow,

and like a hired hand who looks for his wages,

so I am allotted months of emptiness,

and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’

But the night is long,

and I am full of tossing till the dawn.

My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;

my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.

My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle

and come to their end without hope.

“Remember that my life is a breath;

my eye will never again see good.

The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;

while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.

As the cloud fades and vanishes,

so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;

he returns no more to his house,

nor does his place know him anymore.

“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

Am I the sea, or a sea monster,

that you set a guard over me?

When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,

my couch will ease my complaint,’

then you scare me with dreams

and terrify me with visions,

so that I would choose strangling

and death rather than my bones.

I loathe my life; I would not live forever.

Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.

What is man, that you make so much of him,

and that you set your heart on him,

visit him every morning

and test him every moment?

How long will you not look away from me,

nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?

If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind?

Why have you made me your mark?

Why have I become a burden to you?

Why do you not pardon my transgression

and take away my iniquity?

For now I shall lie in the earth;

you will seek me, but I shall not be.”

Bildad Speaks: Job Should Repent

Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

“How long will you say these things,

and the words of your mouth be a great wind?

Does God pervert justice?

Or does the Almighty pervert the right?

If your children have sinned against him,

he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression.

If you will seek God

and plead with the Almighty for mercy,

if you are pure and upright,

surely then he will rouse himself for you

and restore your rightful habitation.

And though your beginning was small,

your latter days will be very great.

“For inquire, please, of bygone ages,

and consider what the fathers have searched out.

For we are but of yesterday and know nothing,

for our days on earth are a shadow.

Will they not teach you and tell you

and utter words out of their understanding?

“Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh?

Can reeds flourish where there is no water?

While yet in flower and not cut down,

they wither before any other plant.

Such are the paths of all who forget God;

the hope of the godless shall perish.

His confidence is severed,

and his trust is a spider's web.

He leans against his house, but it does not stand;

he lays hold of it, but it does not endure.

He is a lush plant before the sun,

and his shoots spread over his garden.

His roots entwine the stone heap;

he looks upon a house of stones.

If he is destroyed from his place,

then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’

Behold, this is the joy of his way,

and out of the soil others will spring.

“Behold, God will not reject a blameless man,

nor take the hand of evildoers.

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter,

and your lips with shouting.

Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,

and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

Job Replies: There Is No Arbiter

Then Job answered and said:

“Truly I know that it is so:

But how can a man be in the right before God?

If one wished to contend with him,

one could not answer him once in a thousand times.

He is wise in heart and mighty in strength

—who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—

he who removes mountains, and they know it not,

when he overturns them in his anger,

who shakes the earth out of its place,

and its pillars tremble;

who commands the sun, and it does not rise;

who seals up the stars;

who alone stretched out the heavens

and trampled the waves of the sea;

who made the Bear and Orion,

the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;

who does great things beyond searching out,

and marvelous things beyond number.

Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not;

he moves on, but I do not perceive him.

Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back?

Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

“God will not turn back his anger;

beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab.

How then can I answer him,

choosing my words with him?

Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him;

I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.

If I summoned him and he answered me,

I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.

For he crushes me with a tempest

and multiplies my wounds without cause;

he will not let me get my breath,

but fills me with bitterness.

If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty!

If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?

Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me;

though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.

I am blameless; I regard not myself;

I loathe my life.

It is all one; therefore I say,

‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’

When disaster brings sudden death,

he mocks at the calamity of the innocent.

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?

“My days are swifter than a runner;

they flee away; they see no good.

They go by like skiffs of reed,

like an eagle swooping on the prey.

If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,

I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’

I become afraid of all my suffering,

for I know you will not hold me innocent.

I shall be condemned;

why then do I labor in vain?

If I wash myself with snow

and cleanse my hands with lye,

yet you will plunge me into a pit,

and my own clothes will abhor me.

For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,

that we should come to trial together.

There is no5 arbiter between us,

who might lay his hand on us both.

Let him take his rod away from me,

and let not dread of him terrify me.

Then I would speak without fear of him,

for I am not so in myself.