"How long will you speak these things, seeing that the words of your mouth are like a great wind?

For we were born yesterday and do not have knowledge, since our days on earth are but a shadow.

While they are still beginning to flower and not ripe for cutting, they can wither away faster than any grass!

If he snatches away, who can turn him back? Who dares to say to him, 'What are you doing?'

"My days are swifter than a runner, they speed by without seeing happiness.

I will say to God, 'Do not condemn me; tell me why you are contending with me.'

Are your days like the days of a mortal, or your years like the years of a mortal,

Are not my days few? Cease, then, and leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,

"Without a doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you.

But the tents of robbers are peaceful, and those who provoke God are confident -- who carry their god in their hands.

"With God are wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.

With him are strength and prudence; both the one who goes astray and the one who misleads are his.

But you, however, are inventors of lies; all of you are worthless physicians!

Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay.

How many are my iniquities and sins? Show me my transgression and my sin.

"Man, born of woman, lives but a few days, and they are full of trouble.

Since man's days are determined, the number of his months is under your control; you have set his limit and he cannot pass it.

so man lies down and does not rise; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake nor arise from their sleep.

If his sons are honored, he does not know it; if they are brought low, he does not see it.

The gray-haired and the aged are on our side, men far older than your father.

Are God's consolations too trivial for you; or a word spoken in gentleness to you?

If God places no trust in his holy ones, if even the heavens are not pure in his eyes,

All his days the wicked man suffers torment, throughout the number of the years that are stored up for the tyrant.

he lived in ruined towns and in houses where no one lives, where they are ready to crumble into heaps.

"I have heard many things like these before. What miserable comforters are you all!

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

Upright men are appalled at this; the innocent man is troubled with the godless.

My days have passed, my plans are shattered, even the desires of my heart.

If I cry to corruption, 'You are my father,' and to the worm, 'My Mother,' or 'My sister,'

His vigorous steps are restricted, and his own counsel throws him down.

People of the west are appalled at his fate; people of the east are seized with horror, saying,

These ten times you have been reproaching me; you are not ashamed to attack me!

He will not look on the streams, the rivers, which are the torrents of honey and butter.

Their children are firmly established in their presence, their offspring before their eyes.

Their houses are safe and without fear; and no rod of punishment from God is upon them.

How often are they like straw before the wind, and like chaff swept away by a whirlwind?

Can anyone teach God knowledge, since he judges those that are on high?

"Yes, I know what you are thinking, the schemes by which you would wrong me.

For you say, 'Where now is the nobleman's house, and where are the tents in which the wicked lived?'

The clods of the torrent valley are sweet to him; behind him everybody follows in procession, and before him goes a countless throng.

"Is not God on high in heaven? And see the lofty stars, how high they are!

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

Surely our enemies are destroyed, and fire consumes their wealth.'

When people are brought low and you say 'Lift them up!' then he will save the downcast;

For he fulfills his decree against me, and many such things are his plans.

"Why are times not appointed by the Almighty? Why do those who know him not see his days?

They are soaked by mountain rains and huddle in the rocks because they lack shelter.

They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees; they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty.

There are those who rebel against the light; they do not know its ways and they do not stay on its paths.

For all of them, the morning is to them like deep darkness; they are friends with the terrors of darkness.

They are exalted for a little while, and then they are gone, they are brought low like all others, and gathered in, and like a head of grain they are cut off.'

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

The pillars of the heavens tremble and are amazed at his rebuke.

Indeed, these are but the outer fringes of his ways! How faint is the whisper we hear of him! But who can understand the thunder of his power?"

I will never declare that you three are in the right; until I die, I will not set aside my integrity!

Those who survive him are buried by the plague, and their widows do not mourn for them.

a place whose stones are sapphires and which contains dust of gold;

"But now they mock me, those who are younger than I, whose fathers I disdained too much to put with my sheep dogs.

Terrors are turned loose on me; they drive away my honor like the wind, and like a cloud my deliverance has passed away.

I know that you are bringing me to death, to the meeting place for all the living.

"If I have put my confidence in gold or said to pure gold, 'You are my security!'

then let thorns sprout up in place of wheat, and in place of barley, weeds!" The words of Job are ended.

So Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite spoke up: "I am young, but you are elderly; that is why I was fearful, and afraid to explain to you what I know.

It is not the aged who are wise, nor old men who understand what is right.

"They are dismayed and cannot answer any more; they have nothing left to say.

Now in this, you are not right -- I answer you, for God is greater than a human being.

His flesh wastes away from sight, and his bones, which were not seen, are easily visible.

who shows no partiality to princes, and does not take note of the rich more than the poor, because all of them are the work of his hands?

In a moment they die, in the middle of the night, people are shaken and they pass away. The mighty are removed effortlessly.

For his eyes are on the ways of an individual, he observes all a person's steps.

Therefore, he knows their deeds, he overthrows them in the night and they are crushed.

that Job speaks without knowledge and his words are without understanding.

But Job will be tested to the end, because his answers are like those of wicked men.

Gaze at the heavens and see; consider the clouds, which are higher than you!

If you sin, how does it affect God? If your transgressions are many, what does it do to him?

If you are righteous, what do you give to God, or what does he receive from your hand?

How much less, then, when you say that you do not perceive him, that the case is before him and you are waiting for him!

For in truth, my words are not false; it is one complete in knowledge who is with you.

But if they are bound in chains, and held captive by the cords of affliction,

But now you are preoccupied with the judgment due the wicked, judgment and justice take hold of you.

You, whose garments are hot when the earth is still because of the south wind,

The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features are dyed like a garment.

to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, a desert where there are no human beings,

Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go? Will they say to you, 'Here we are'?

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

"The wings of the ostrich flap with joy, but are they the pinions and plumage of a stork?

And its young ones devour the blood, and where the dead carcasses are, there it is."

It makes its tail stiff like a cedar, the sinews of its thighs are tightly wound.

Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like bars of iron.

Who can open the doors of its mouth? Its teeth all around are fearsome.

Its snorting throws out flashes of light; its eyes are like the red glow of dawn.

The folds of its flesh are tightly joined; they are firm on it, immovable.

When it rises up, the mighty are terrified, at its thrashing about they withdraw.

Its underparts are the sharp points of potsherds, it leaves its mark in the mud like a threshing sledge.

It looks on every haughty being; it is king over all that are proud."

Not so with the wicked! Instead they are like wind-driven chaff.

Why do the nations rebel? Why are the countries devising plots that will fail?

The king says, "I will announce the Lord's decree. He said to me: 'You are my son! This very day I have become your father!

Give sincere homage! Otherwise he will be angry, and you will die because of your behavior, when his anger quickly ignites. How blessed are all who take shelter in him!

A psalm of David, written when he fled from his son Absalom. Lord, how numerous are my enemies! Many attack me.