After this, Job began to speak and cursed the day he was born.

May the day I was born perish,
and the night when they said,
“A boy is conceived.”

Why was I not stillborn;
why didn’t I die as I came from the womb?

Or why was I not hidden like a miscarried child,
like infants who never see daylight?

Your words have steadied the one who was stumbling
and braced the knees that were buckling.

Consider: who has perished when he was innocent?
Where have the honest been destroyed?

A word was brought to me in secret;
my ears caught a whisper of it.

If I wash myself with snow,
and cleanse my hands with lye,

“Yet You concealed these thoughts in Your heart;
I know that this was Your hidden plan:

as water wears away stones
and torrents wash away the soil from the land,
so You destroy a man’s hope.

what was declared by wise men
and was not suppressed by their ancestors,

the land was given to them alone
when no foreigner passed among them.

I was at ease, but He shattered me;
He seized me by the scruff of the neck
and smashed me to pieces.
He set me up as His target;

Don’t you know that ever since antiquity,
from the time man was placed on earth,

You sent widows away empty-handed,
and the strength of the fatherless was crushed.

But it was He who filled their houses with good things.
The counsel of the wicked is far from me!

I would be as I was in the days of my youth
when God’s friendship rested on my tent,

when the Almighty was still with me
and my children were around me,

I was eyes to the blind
and feet to the lame.

I was a father to the needy,
and I examined the case of the stranger.

What use to me was the strength of their hands?
Their vigor had left them.

for from my youth, I raised him as his father,
and since the day I was born I guided the widow—

if I have gazed at the sun when it was shining
or at the moon moving in splendor,

so that my heart was secretly enticed
and I threw them a kiss,

So these three men quit answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.

Then Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite from the family of Ram became angry. He was angry at Job because he had justified himself rather than God.

He was also angry at Job’s three friends because they had failed to refute him and yet had condemned him.

So Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite replied:

I am young in years,
while you are old;
therefore I was timid and afraid
to tell you what I know.

I am just like you before God;
I was also pinched off from a piece of clay.

He will look at men and say,
“I have sinned and perverted what was right;
yet I did not get what I deserved.

Indeed, He lured you from the jaws of distress
to a spacious and unconfined place.
Your table was spread with choice food.

I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise,
and I was saved from my enemies.

They confronted me in the day of my distress,
but the Lord was my support.

I was blameless toward Him
and kept myself from sinning.

I was given over to You at birth;
You have been my God from my mother’s womb.

I wash my hands in innocence
and go around Your altar, Lord,

When I was secure, I said,
“I will never be shaken.”

Lord, when You showed Your favor,
You made me stand like a strong mountain;
when You hid Your face, I was terrified.

For day and night Your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was drained
as in the summer’s heat.Selah

Yet when they were sick,
my clothing was sackcloth;
I humbled myself with fasting,
and my prayer was genuine.

I went about grieving as if for my friend or brother;
I was bowed down with grief,
like one mourning a mother.

Then I passed by and noticed he was gone;
I searched for him, but he could not be found.

I was speechless and quiet;
I kept silent, even from speaking good,
and my pain intensified.

You have done these things, and I kept silent;
you thought I was just like you.
But I will rebuke you
and lay out the case before you.

Wash away my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.

Indeed, I was guilty when I was born;
I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

They prepared a net for my steps;
I was despondent.
They dug a pit ahead of me,
but they fell into it!Selah

The righteous one will rejoice
when he sees the retribution;
he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

I cried out to Him with my mouth,
and praise was on my tongue.

God’s chariots are tens of thousands,
thousands and thousands;
the Lord is among them in the sanctuary
as He was at Sinai.

I wore sackcloth as my clothing,
and I was a joke to them.

Insults have broken my heart,
and I am in despair.
I waited for sympathy,
but there was none;
for comforters, but found no one.

Did I purify my heart
and wash my hands in innocence for nothing?

When I became embittered
and my innermost being was wounded,

I was stupid and didn’t understand;
I was an unthinking animal toward You.

It was like men in a thicket of trees,
wielding axes,

The brave-hearted have been plundered;
they have slipped into their final sleep.
None of the warriors was able to lift a hand.

The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind;
lightning lit up the world.
The earth shook and quaked.

Then they would not be like their fathers,
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not loyal
and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Before they had satisfied their desire,
while the food was still in their mouths,

They remembered that God was their rock,
the Most High God, their Redeemer.

Yet He was compassionate;
He atoned for their guilt
and did not destroy them.
He often turned His anger aside
and did not unleash all His wrath.

He surrendered His people to the sword
because He was enraged with His heritage.

They poured out their blood
like water all around Jerusalem,
and there was no one to bury them.

It was cut down and burned up;
they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.

“I will mention those who know Me:
Rahab, Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, and Cush—
each one was born there.”

When He registers the peoples,
the Lord will record,
“This one was born there.”Selah

For 40 years I was disgusted with that generation;
I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray;
they do not know My ways.”

Moses and Aaron were among His priests;
Samuel also was among those calling on His name.
They called to Yahweh and He answered them.

He had sent a man ahead of them—
Joseph, who was sold as a slave.

They hurt his feet with shackles;
his neck was put in an iron collar.

Their land was overrun with frogs,
even in their royal chambers.

Egypt was glad when they left,
for the dread of Israel had fallen on them.

But Phinehas stood up and intervened,
and the plague was stopped.

It was credited to him as righteousness
throughout all generations to come.

He broke their spirits with hard labor;
they stumbled, and there was no one to help.

they reeled and staggered like drunken men,
and all their skill was useless.

Why was it, sea, that you fled?
Jordan, that you turned back?

The Lord guards the inexperienced;
I was helpless, and He saved me.

Before I was afflicted I went astray,
but now I keep Your word.

It was good for me to be afflicted
so that I could learn Your statutes.

For it was You who created my inward parts;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

My bones were not hidden from You
when I was made in secret,
when I was formed in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw me when I was formless;
all my days were written in Your book and planned
before a single one of them began.

When I was a son with my father,
tender and precious to my mother,

I am on the verge of complete ruin
before the entire community.”

I was formed before ancient times,
from the beginning, before the earth began.

I was born
when there were no watery depths
and no springs filled with water.

I was delivered
before the mountains and hills were established,

I was there when He established the heavens,
when He laid out the horizon on the surface of the ocean,

I was a skilled craftsman beside Him.
I was His delight every day,
always rejoicing before Him.

I was rejoicing in His inhabited world,
delighting in the human race.

Thistles had come up everywhere,
weeds covered the ground,
and the stone wall was ruined.

so is the man who deceives his neighbor
and says, “I was only joking!”

All that my eyes desired, I did not deny them. I did not refuse myself any pleasure, for I took pleasure in all my struggles. This was my reward for all my struggles.

When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and a pursuit of the wind. There was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Therefore, I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

When there is a man whose work was done with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and he must give his portion to a man who has not worked for it, this too is futile and a great wrong.

For he came from prison to be king, even though he was born poor in his kingdom.