Look what ye know, that same do I know also, neither am I inferior unto you.

“But I wish to speak to the Almighty,
And I desire to argue with God.

O that you would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.

Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocks another, do you so mock him?

Will not his glory put you in fear, so that your hearts will be overcome before him?

Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will.

Moreover, this [is] salvation to me, that [the] godless would not come {before him}.

Behold now, I have prepared my case; I know that I shall be justified.

Who is he that will contend with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall die.

Only grant these two things to me, God,
so that I will not have to hide from Your presence:

And then send for me to the law, that I may answer for myself: or else, let me speak, and give thou the answer.

“How many are my iniquities and sins [that so much sorrow should come to me]?
Make me recognize and understand my transgression and my sin.

And he, like a rotten thing, consumes, as a garment that is moth-eaten.

Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.

Is it on such a one as this that your eyes are fixed, with the purpose of judging him?

Who can make it clean, that cometh from an unclean thing? Nobody.

Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with you, you have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;

Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.

For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender shoots thereof will not cease.

the presence of water will make it to bud so that it sprouts new branches like a young plant.

O that you would hide me in the grave, that you would conceal me, until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!

You'll call and I'll answer you; you'll long for your creatures that your hands have made.

Water wears away stones; floods wash away topsoil from the land but you destroy the hope of human beings just like that!

Thou prevailest against him, so that he passeth away; thou changes his estate, and puttest him from thee.

Should he argue in talk [that] is not profitable or [in] words with which he cannot do good?

Truly, you make the fear of God without effect, so that the time of quiet worship before God is made less by your outcry.

It is by your mouth, even yours, that you are judged to be in the wrong, and not by me; and your lips give witness against you.

Are you the first man that was born? or were you made before the hills?

Hast thou heard the secret counsel of God, that all wisdom is too little for thee?

What know you, that we know not? what understand you, which is not in us?

Are the consolations of God too small for you? on the word that deals gently with you?

That you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth?

What is man, that he should be clean? and he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

How much less the abominable and corrupt, man, that drinketh unrighteousness like water!

I will show you, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare;

what wise men have told, and they have not hidden [that which is] from their ancestors,

unto whom only the land was given, that no stranger should come among them.

"All of the wicked [one's] days he is writhing, even [through] the number of years that are laid up for the tyrant.

He believes not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for by the sword.

He wanders abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.

{he will dwell} [in] desolate cities, in houses that they should not inhabit, which are destined for rubble.

Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity: for futility shall be his reward.

He will be like a vine that drops its unripe grapes
and like an olive tree that sheds its blossoms.

Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldens you that you answer?

I could speak as ye do also. But would God, that your soul were in my soul's stead: then should I heap up words against you, and shake my head at you.

But now that God hath sent me adversity, thou hast troubled all my congregation.

And that thou hast filled me with wrinkles, my flesh is witness; and my leanness riseth up against me and beareth witness thereof in my face.

GOD doth abandon me to him that is perverse, and, into the hands of the lawless, he throweth me headlong.

Even now, behold, my Witness is in the heavens, and he that voucheth for me is in the heights.

And, he that voucheth for me is on high. My friends are, they who scorn me, Unto GOD, hath mine eye shed tears: -

O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor!

For the years that lie ahead are few, and then I will go on the way of no return.

Lay down a surety for me with you; who is he that will give surety for me?

He that speaks flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail.

The righteous also shall hold to his way, and he that has clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.

“These [thoughts try to] make the night into the day;
‘The light is near,’ they say in the presence of darkness [but they pervert the truth].

"If my hope were that my house is the afterlife itself, if I were to make my bed in darkness,

If I call out to the pit (grave), ‘You are my father’;
And to the worm [that feeds on decay], ‘You are my mother and my sister [because I will soon be closest to you],’

What helpeth then my long tarrying? Or, who will fulfill the thing that I look for?

All that I have, shall go down into the pit, and lie with me in the dust."

Thou that tearest thyself in thine anger, shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of its place?

"Fearfulness shall make him afraid on every side, that he shall not know where to get out.

There shall dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulfur shall be scattered on his habitation.

They that come after him shall be astounded at his day, as they that went before were frightened.

Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knows not God.

These ten times have you reproached me: you are not ashamed that you have wronged me.

And be it that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.

But if ye will enhance yourselves against me, and accuse me to be a wicked person because of the shame that is come upon me;

Know now that God has overthrown me, and has compassed me with his net.

He has fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness in my paths.

He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined.
He uproots my hope like a tree.

They that dwell in my house, and my maidservants, count me as a stranger: I am an alien in their sight.

Why are you chasing me, as God has been doing? Aren't you satisfied that I'm sick?

Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!

That they were engraved with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!

For I know that my redeemer lives, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:

that I shall be clothed again with this skin, and see God in my flesh.

If ye say, How we will persecute him! And that the root of the matter is found in me;

Be yourselves afraid of the sword: for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.

"Therefore do my thoughts give answer to me, even by reason of my haste that is in me.

I hear discipline that insults me, and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.

Knowest thou not this, that of old, since man was placed upon earth,

That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?

Though he be magnified up to the heaven, so that his head reacheth into the clouds:

Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: They that have seen him shall say, Where is he?

He vanisheth as a dream, so that he can no more be found, and passeth away as a vision in the night.

[The] eye [that] saw him {will not see him again}, and his place will no longer behold him.

His children are hoping that the poor will be kind to them, and his hands give back his wealth.

His bones were full of his youthful vigor, but that vigor will lie down with him in the dust.

That he favoured, that would he not forsake; but kept it close in his throat.

The bread that he did eat is turned to the poison of serpents, within his body.

The wealth that he consumed he vomits up, God will make him throw it out of his stomach.

so that he shall no more see the rivers, and brooks of honey and butter.

That which he labored for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down: from the proceeds of business he shall not rejoice.

For he hath oppressed, hath forsaken the poor; he hath violently taken away a house that he did not build.

Surely he shall not feel quietness in his heart, he shall not save of that which he desired.

There was nothing left that he didn't devour, therefore his prosperity shall not endure.

In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: The hand of every one that is in misery shall come upon him.

It shall be that, to fill his belly, he will cast his fierce anger upon him, and will rain it upon him into his flesh.

so that if he flee the iron weapons, he shall be shot with the steel bow.