[1] Job responded: [2] Surely you are the people, and wisdom will die with you. [3] I am also intelligent; I’m not inferior to you. Who isn’t like these people? [4] I’m a joke to friends who called to God and he answered; the innocent and blameless one is a joke, [5] a torch of contempt to one who is idle, a fixed point for slipping feet. [6] Raiders’ tents are prosperous and God’s provokers secure, who carry God in their hands. [7] But ask Behemoth, and he will teach you, the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; [8] or talk to earth, and it will teach you; the fish of the sea will recount it for you. [9] Among all these, who hasn’t known that the LORD’s hand did this? [10] In whose grasp is the life of every thing, the breath of every person? [11] Doesn’t the ear test words and the palate taste food? [12] “In old age is wisdom; understanding in a long life.” [13] With him are wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his. [14] If he tears down, it can’t be rebuilt; if he ties a person up, he can’t be set free. [15] If he restricts water, they have drought; if he lets it loose, it overturns the land. [16] With him are might and success; the deceiver and the deceived are his. [17] He leads advisors away barefoot; makes madmen of judges; [18] unties the belt of kings, binds a garment around their loins; [19] leads priests away barefoot; overthrows the well-established; [20] silences the talk of trusted people; takes away elders’ discernment; [21] pours contempt on royalty; loosens the belt of the strong; [22] discloses deep secrets of darkness, makes utter darkness enter the light; [23] makes nations prominent and destroys them, expands nations and leads them astray; [24] takes away the power to think from earth’s leaders, making them wander in untraveled wastelands. [25] They feel their way in the dark without light; he makes them stumble like drunks.
