Job’s Last Words to His Friends
27 Moreover Job continued his discourse:
2 “As God lives, who has taken away my judgment,
and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,
3 all the while my spirit is in me,
and the breath of God is in my nostrils,
4 my lips will not speak wickedness,
nor my tongue utter deceit.
5 God forbid that I should justify you.
Until I die I will not put away my integrity from me.
6 My righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go;
my heart will not reproach me as long as I live.
7 “Let my enemy be like the wicked,
and he who rises up against me like the unrighteous.
8 For what is the hope of the hypocrite,
though he may gain much, when God takes away his soul?
9 Will God hear his cry
when trouble comes upon him?
10 Will he delight himself in the Almighty?
Will he always call upon God?
11 “I will teach you about the hand of God;
what is with the Almighty I will not conceal.
12 Look, all of you have seen it;
why then have you become altogether vain?
13 “This is the portion of a wicked man with God,
and the inheritance that oppressors receive from the Almighty:
14 If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword,
and his offspring will not be satisfied with bread.
15 Those who survive him will be buried in death,
and their widows will not weep.
16 Though he heaps up silver like the dust
and piles up clothing like the clay—
17 he may pile it up, but the just will wear it,
and the innocent will divide the silver.
18 He builds his house like a moth,
and like a booth that the watchman makes.
19 The rich man will lie down, but he will not be gathered;
he opens his eyes, and he is not.
20 Terrors overtake him like floodwaters;
a tempest steals him away in the night.
21 The east wind carries him away, and he departs;
it sweeps him out of his place.
22 For God will cast it upon him and not spare;
he would flee from its power.
23 Men will clap their hands at him
and will hiss him out of his place.
