Job 33

¹ Now, Job, be kind enough to listen to my words, and attend to all I have to say.

² Now as I open my mouth, and my tongue shapes words against my palate,

³ my heart shall utter sayings full of wisdom, and my lips speak the honest truth.

⁵ Refute me, if you can. Prepare your ground to oppose me.

⁶ See, I am your fellow man, not a god; like you, I was fashioned out of clay.

⁴ God’s breath it was that made me, the breathing of Shaddai that gave me life.

⁷ Thus, no fear of me need disturb you, my hand will not lie heavy over you.

⁸ How could you say in my hearing – for the sound of your words did not escape me –

⁹ ‘I am clean, and sinless, I am pure, free of all fault.

¹⁰ Yet he is inventing grievances against me, and imagining me his enemy.

¹¹ He puts me in the stocks, he watches my every step’?

¹² In saying so, I tell you, you are wrong: God does not fit man’s measure.

¹³ Why do you rail at him for not replying to you, word for word?

¹⁴ God speaks first in one way, and then in another, but no one notices.

¹⁵ He speaks by dreams, and visions that come in the night, when slumber comes on mankind, and men are all asleep in bed.

¹⁶ Then it is he whispers in the ear of man, or may frighten him with fearful sights,

¹⁷ to turn him away from evil-doing, and make an end of his pride;

¹⁸ to save his soul from the pit and his life from the pathway to Sheol.

¹⁹ With suffering, too, he corrects man on his sick-bed, when his bones keep trembling with palsy;

²⁰ when his whole self is revolted by food, and his appetite spurns dainties;

²¹ when his flesh rots as you watch it, and his bare bones begin to show;

²² when his soul is drawing near to the pit, and his life to the dwelling of the dead.

²³ Then there is an Angel by his side, a Mediator, chosen out of thousands, to remind a man where his duty lies,

²⁴ to take pity on him and to say, ‘Release him from descent into the pit, for I have found a ransom for his life’;

²⁵ his flesh recovers the bloom of its youth, he lives again as he did when he was young.

²⁶ He prays to God who has restored him to favour, and comes, in happiness, to see his face. He publishes far and wide the news of his vindication,

²⁷ singing before his fellow men this hymn of praise, ‘I sinned and left the path of right, but God has not punished me as my sin deserved.

²⁸ He has spared my soul from going down into the pit, and is allowing my life to continue in the light.’

²⁹ All this God does again and yet again for man,

³⁰ rescuing his soul from the pit, and letting the light of life shine bright on him.

³¹ Job, give me your attention, listen well; keep silence: I have more to say.

³² If you have anything to say, refute me, speak out, for I would gladly recognise your innocence.

³³ If you have not, then listen: keep silence, while I teach you wisdom.