Job: How Can I Contend with God? 1 UDB Then Job replied, BSB BSB: Then Job answered:
2 UDB "Yes, yes, I know. But how can anyone say to God, 'I am innocent'? BSB BSB: “Yes, I know that it is so, but how can a mortal be righteous before God?
3 UDB If someone wanted to argue with God about that, God could ask him a thousand questions and that person would not be able to answer any of them! BSB BSB: If one wished to contend with God, he could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.
4 UDB God is very wise and powerful; no one who has tried to argue against him has ever been able to win. BSB BSB: God is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has resisted Him and prospered?
5 UDB He even moves mountains in earthquakes without telling anyone in advance. When he is angry, he turns the mountains upside down. BSB BSB: He moves mountains without their knowledge and overturns them in His anger.
6 UDB He sends earthquakes that shake the ground; he causes the columns that support the earth to shake. BSB BSB: He shakes the earth from its place, so that its foundations tremble.
7 UDB Some days he speaks to the sun, and it does not rise, and some nights he prevents the stars from shining. BSB BSB: He commands the sun not to shine; He seals off the stars.
8 UDB He alone stretched stretches out the sky; he alone puts his feet on the waves and stops their violence. BSB BSB: He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.
9 UDB He set in their places the groups of stars— the Bear, Orion, the Pleiades, and the groups of stars in the southern sky. BSB BSB: He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, of the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.
10 UDB He does great things that we cannot understand; he does more marvelous things than we are able to count. BSB BSB: He does great things beyond searching out, and wonders without number.
11 UDB He passes by where I am, but I cannot see him; he moves further on, but I do not see him go. BSB BSB: Were He to pass by me, I would not see Him; were He to move, I would not recognize Him.
12 UDB If he wants to snatch someone away, no one could stop him; no one dares ask him, 'Why are you doing that?' BSB BSB: If He takes away, who can stop Him? Who dares to ask Him, ‘What are You doing?’
13 UDB God will not very easily stop being angry; he defeated the servants of Rahab, the great sea monster. BSB BSB: God does not restrain His anger; the helpers of Rahab cower beneath Him.
14 UDB If God took me to court, what could I say to answer him? BSB BSB: How then can I answer Him or choose my arguments against Him?
15 UDB Even though I would be innocent, I would not be able to answer him. All I could do would be to request God, my judge, to act mercifully toward me. BSB BSB: For even if I were right, I could not answer. I could only beg my Judge for mercy.
16 UDB If I summoned him to come to the courtroom and he said that he would come, I would not believe that he would pay attention to what I would say. BSB BSB: If I summoned Him and He answered me, I do not believe He would listen to my voice.
17 UDB He sends storms to batter me, and he bruises me many times without any reason. BSB BSB: For He would crush me with a tempest and multiply my wounds without cause.
18 UDB It is as though he will not let me get my breath because he causes me to suffer all the time. BSB BSB: He does not let me catch my breath, but overwhelms me with bitterness.
19 UDB If I tried to wrestle with him, there would be no way to defeat him, because he is stronger than I am. If I called him to appear in court, there is no one who could force him to go there. BSB BSB: If it is a matter of strength, He is indeed mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon Him?
20 UDB Even though I was innocent, anything I said would cause him to punish me; even though I had not done anything wrong, he would still prove that I was guilty. BSB BSB: Even if I were righteous, my mouth would condemn me; if I were blameless, it would declare me guilty.
21 UDB I have not done anything wrong, but that is not important anymore because I do not care what happens to me. I despise living. BSB BSB: Though I am blameless, I have no concern for myself; I despise my own life.
22 UDB Nothing is important to me because God will get rid of all of us, both those who are innocent and those who are wicked. BSB BSB: It is all the same, and so I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’
23 UDB When people experience disaster and it causes them to suddenly die, God laughs at it, even if they are innocent. BSB BSB: When the scourge brings sudden death, He mocks the despair of the innocent.
24 UDB God has allowed wicked people to control what happens in the world. It is as though he had caused judges to be blind, no longer able to judge fairly. If it is not God who has done that, who, then, has done it? BSB BSB: The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; He blindfolds its judges. If it is not He, then who is it?
25 UDB My days pass very quickly, like a fast runner who passes one by; it is as though the days run away, and nothing good ever happens to me. BSB BSB: My days are swifter than a runner; they flee without seeing good.
26 UDB My life goes by very rapidly, like a swiftly sailing boat made from reeds or like an eagle that swoops down to seize an animal. BSB BSB: They sweep by like boats of papyrus, like an eagle swooping down on its prey.
27 UDB If I smile and say to God, 'I will forget what I am complaining about; I will stop looking sad and try to be cheerful,' BSB BSB: If I were to say, ‘I will forget my complaint and change my expression and smile,’
28 UDB then I become afraid because of all that I am suffering because I know that God does not consider that I am innocent. BSB BSB: I would still dread all my sufferings; I know that You will not acquit me.
29 UDB He will condemn me anyway, so why should I keep trying in vain to defend myself? BSB BSB: Since I am already found guilty, why should I labor in vain?
30 UDB If I washed myself with snow or cleansed my hands with lye to get rid of my guilt, BSB BSB: If I should wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye,
31 UDB he would still throw me into a filthy pit; as a result it would be as though even my clothes would detest me. BSB BSB: then You would plunge me into the pit, and even my own clothes would despise me.
32 UDB God is not a human, as I am, so there is no way that I could answer him to prove that I am innocent if we went together to have a trial in a courtroom. BSB BSB: For He is not a man like me, that I can answer Him, that we can take each other to court.
33 UDB There is no one to mediate, no one who has authority over both of us. BSB BSB: Nor is there a mediator between us, to lay his hand upon us both.
34 UDB I wish someone else could stop God from making me suffer, and that he would not continue to terrify me. BSB BSB: Let Him remove His rod from me, so that His terror will no longer frighten me.
35 UDB If he did that, I would declare that I am innocent without being afraid of him because I know within myself that I really have not done what is wrong like God thinks that I have. BSB BSB: Then I would speak without fear of Him. But as it is, I am on my own.
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