Job 9

1Then Job answered and said,

2I know of a truth that it is so: for how shall a mortal man be just before the Lord?

3For if he would enter into judgment with him, [God] would not hearken to him, so that he should answer to one of his charges of a thousand.

4For he is wise in mind, and mighty, and great: who has hardened himself against him and endured?

5Who wears out the mountains, and [men] know it not: who overturns them in anger.

6Who shakes the [earth] under heaven from its foundations, and its pillars totter.

7Who commands the sun, and it rises not; and he seals up the stars.

8Who alone has stretched out the heavens, and walks on the sea as on firm ground.

9Who makes Pleias, and Hesperus, and Arcturus, and the chambers of the south.

10Who does great and unsearchable things; glorious also and excellent things, innumerable.

11If ever he should go beyond me, I shall not see him: if he should pass by me, neither thus have I known [it].

12If he would take away, who shall turn him back? or who shall say to him, What hast thou done?

13For [if] he has turned away [his] anger, the whales under heaven have stooped under him.

14Oh then that he would hearken to me, or judge my cause.

15For though I be righteous, he will not hearken to me: I will intreat his judgment.

16And if I should call and he should not hearken, I cannot believe that he has listened to my voice.

17Let him not crush me with a dark storm: but he has made my bruises many without cause.

18For he suffers me not to take breath, but he has filled me with bitterness.

19For indeed he is strong in power: who then shall resist his judgment?

20For though I should seem righteous, my mouth will be profane: and though I should seem blameless, I shall be proved perverse.

21For even if I have sinned, I know it not [in] my soul: but my life is taken away.

22Wherefore I said, Wrath slays the great and mighty man.

23For the worthless die, but the righteous are laughed to scorn.

24For they are delivered into the hands of the unrighteous [man]: he covers the faces of the judges [of the earth]: but if it be not he, who is it?

25But my life is swifter than a post: [my days] have fled away, and they knew it not.

26Or again, is there a trace of [their] path [left] by ships? or is there one of the flying eagle as it seeks [its] prey?

27And if I should say, I will forget to speak, I will bow down my face and groan;

28I quake in all my limbs, for I know that thou wilt not leave me alone [as] innocent.

29But since I am ungodly, why have I not died?

30For if I should wash myself with snow, and purge myself with pure hands,

31thou hadst thoroughly plunged me in filth, and my garment had abhorred me.

32For thou art not man like me, with whom I could contend, that we might come together to judgment.

33Would that [he] our mediator were [present], and a reprover, and one who should hear [the cause] between both.

34Let him remove [his] rod from me, and let not his fear terrify me:

35so shall I not be afraid, but I will speak: for I am not thus conscious [of guilt].