"Why did I not die at birth, and why did I not expire as I came out of the womb?

Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same.

but people are born to trouble, as surely as the sparks fly upward.

"But as for me, I would seek God, and to God I would set forth my case.

They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope about in the noontime as if it were night.

You will come to your grave in a full age, As stacks of grain are harvested in their season.

My brothers have been as treacherous as a seasonal stream, and as the riverbeds of the intermittent streams that flow away.

Do you intend to criticize mere words, and treat the words of a despairing man as wind?

As a cloud is dispersed and then disappears, so the one who goes down to the grave does not come up again.

If I have sinned -- what have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you set me as your target? Have I become a burden to you?

"Do you have eyes of flesh, or do you see as a human being sees?

Remember that you have made me as with the clay; will you return me to dust?

If I lift myself up, you hunt me as a fierce lion, and again you display your power against me.

I should have been as though I had never existed; I should have been carried right from the womb to the grave!

"As for you, if you prove faithful, and if you stretch out your hands toward him,

I also have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know such things as these?

"But now, ask the animals and they will teach you, or the birds of the sky and they will tell you.

Does not the ear test words, as the tongue tastes food?

Would it turn out well if he would examine you? Or as one deceives a man would you deceive him?

Why do you hide your face and regard me as your enemy?

As water disappears from the sea, or a river drains away and dries up,

But as a mountain falls away and crumbles, and as a rock will be removed from its place,

as water wears away stones, and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy man's hope.

My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God;

and he contends with God on behalf of man as a man pleads for his friend.

Why should we be regarded as beasts, and considered stupid in your sight?

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that as the last he will stand upon the earth.

Thick clouds are a veil for him, so he does not see us, as he goes back and forth in the vault of heaven.'

They drive away the orphan's donkey; they take the widow's ox as a pledge.

The fatherless child is snatched from the breast, the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge.

The drought as well as the heat carry away the melted snow; so the grave takes away those who have sinned.

If even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure as far as he is concerned,

He marks out the horizon on the surface of the waters as a boundary between light and darkness.

"As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made my life bitter --

I will maintain my righteousness and never let it go; my conscience will not reproach me for as long as I live.

The house he builds is as fragile as a moth's cocoon, like a hut that a watchman has made.

It hurls itself against him without pity as he flees headlong from its power.

Iron is taken from the ground, and rock is poured out as copper.

The earth, from which food comes, is overturned below as though by fire;

"O that I could be as I was in the months now gone, in the days when God watched over me,

just as I was in my most productive time, when God's intimate friendship was experienced in my tent,

"As soon as the ear heard these things, it blessed me, and when the eye saw them, it bore witness to me,

"Then I thought, 'I will die in my own home, my days as numerous as the grains of sand.

They waited for me as people wait for the rain, and they opened their mouths as for the spring rains.

I chose the way for them and sat as their chief; I lived like a king among his troops; I was like one who comforts mourners.

They come in as through a wide breach; amid the crash they come rolling in.

whose heart did not bless me as he warmed himself with the fleece of my sheep,

if I looked at the sun when it was shining, and the moon advancing as a precious thing,

if I have covered my transgressions as men do, by hiding iniquity in my heart,

Yet God finds occasions with me; he regards me as his enemy!

In a dream, a night vision, when deep sleep falls on people as they sleep in their beds.

For the ear assesses words as the mouth tastes food.

will you, with him, spread out the clouds, solid as a mirror of molten metal?

As for the Almighty, we cannot attain to him! He is great in power, but justice and abundant righteousness he does not oppress.

"Are you acquainted with the way the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch as the wild deer give birth to their young?

to whom I appointed the steppe for its home, the salt wastes as its dwelling place?

It ranges the hills as its pasture, and searches after every green plant.

She is harsh with her young, as if they were not hers; she is unconcerned about the uselessness of her labor.

But as soon as she springs up, she laughs at the horse and its rider.

Do you have an arm as powerful as God's, and can you thunder with a voice like his?

"Look now at Behemoth, which I made as I made you; it eats grass like the ox.

Will it make a pact with you, so you could take it as your slave for life?

Its back has rows of shields, shut up closely together as with a seal;

Smoke streams from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning rushes.

Its heart is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone.

It regards iron as straw and bronze as rotten wood.

A club is counted as a piece of straw; it laughs at the rattling of the lance.

After the Lord had spoken these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My anger is stirred up against you and your two friends, because you have not spoken about me what is right, as my servant Job has.

So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job will intercede for you, and I will respect him, so that I do not deal with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken about me what is right, as my servant Job has."

So they went, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, and did just as the Lord had told them; and the Lord had respect for Job.

Nowhere in all the land could women be found who were as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance alongside their brothers.