There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God [with reverence] and abstained from and turned away from evil [because he honored God].

Have You not put a hedge [of protection] around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands [and conferred prosperity and happiness upon him], and his possessions have increased in the land.

Before I go—and I shall not return—
To the land of darkness and the deep shadow [of death],

The [sunless] land of utter gloom as darkness itself,
[The land] of the shadow of death, without order,
And [where] it shines as [thick] darkness.”

“Behold, He restrains the waters, and they dry up;
Again, He sends the waters out, and they overwhelm and devastate the earth.

“He removes intelligence and understanding from the leaders of the people of the earth
And makes them wander and move blindly in a pathless waste.

To whom alone the land was given,
And no stranger passed among them [corrupting the truth].

“But the land is possessed by the man with power,
And the favored and honorable man dwells in it.

“Some remove the landmarks;
They [violently] seize and pasture flocks [appropriating land and flocks openly].

“Man does not know the value of it;
Nor is it found in the land of the living.

“They are the sons of [worthless and nameless] fools,
They have been driven out of the land.

“For if my land has cried out against me,
And its furrows weep together;

To bring rain on the uninhabited land,
And on the desert where no man lives,

To whom I gave the wilderness as his home
And the salt land as his dwelling place?

In all the land there were found no women so fair as the daughters of Job; and their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers.