1Then Job replied,
2“I know that this is true, but how can a person be innocent before God?
3If God chooses to argue with someone, that person can’t answer him even once in a thousand times.
4God is wise in mind and mighty in strength. Who has ever resisted him and succeeded?
5He moves mountains, and they don’t even know it when he overturns them in his anger.
6He shakes the earth out of its place, and its foundations tremble.
7He commands the sun not to rise and seals up the stars.
8He alone stretches out the heavens and walks on the waves of the sea.
9He made the constellations Bear, Orion, and Pleiades, and the star groups of the southern sky.
10He does great and unknowable things, amazing things too many to count.
11Look, he passes right by me, but I don’t see him. He moves on, but I don’t notice him.
12Look, he takes things away by force. Who can stop him? Who can ask him, ‘What are you doing?’
13God will not stop being angry. Even the helpers of Rahab bow down before him.
14So how much less can I argue with him or choose my words to debate him?
15Even if I were innocent, I wouldn’t try to answer him. I would only plead with my judge.
16Even if I called out and he answered me, I wouldn’t believe that he actually listened to my voice.
17Because he crushes me with a storm and multiplies my wounds for no reason.
18He doesn’t let me catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness.
19If it’s about strength, he is mighty! If it’s about justice, who, he asks, will challenge him?
20Even if I am innocent, my own words will condemn me. Even if I am blameless, my words will prove me wrong.
21I am innocent. I don’t value myself. I hate my life.
22“It’s all the same. That’s why I say he destroys both the innocent and the wicked.
23If a plague suddenly kills people, he mocks the suffering of the innocent.
24The earth is given into the hands of evil people. He blindfolds its judges. If he doesn’t do it, then who does?
25“Now my days are faster than a runner. They fly by, seeing no good.
26They have passed away like swift ships, like an eagle swooping on its prey.
27If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will stop looking sad, and cheer up,’
28I am afraid of all my sufferings; I know that you will not declare me innocent.
29I will be found guilty. So why do I work in vain?
30Even if I wash myself with snow and clean my hands with lye,
31you would still throw me into a pit, and my own clothes would hate me.
32For he is not a man like me, so I can't answer him or go to court with him.
33There is no mediator between us who could lay a hand on both of us.
34Let him take his rod away from me. Let his terror not frighten me;
35then I would speak and not be afraid of him, because I am not truly like this.