Through My Bible Yr 01 – August 06

Through My Bible – August 06

Job 22 – 24 (EHV)

See series: Through My Bible

² Can a man benefit God?
Can even a wise man be of any use to him?
³ Should the Almighty be delighted if you are righteous?
Does he gain any advantage if your ways are blameless?
⁴ Is it because of your reverence that he rebukes you
and comes against you in judgment?
⁵ Isn’t your wickedness great?
Isn’t your guilt endless?
⁶ You have seized collateral from your brothers without cause,
and you have stripped off clothing from the naked.
⁷ You have not given water to the weary,
and you have withheld bread from the hungry.

⁸ The earth belongs to a forceful man,
and a well-respected man dwells in it. ^[1]

⁹ You send widows away empty-handed.
You crush the arms of the fatherless.
¹⁰ That is why snares are all around you,
and sudden fear overwhelms you.
¹¹ That is why you cannot see in the darkness,
and floodwaters cover you.

¹² Is not God in the heights of heaven?
Look at ^[2] the highest stars, so high above!
¹³ But you say, “What does God know?
Can he judge through the thick darkness?
¹⁴ Dark clouds are a veil around him,
so he does not see us
as he walks back and forth in heaven’s dome.”

¹⁵ Are you the guardian of the ancient way,
    the one traveled by wicked men?
¹⁶ They were snatched away before their time. ^[3]
Their foundation was washed away by a river.
¹⁷ They said to God, “Keep away from us,”
and “What can the Almighty do to us?” ^[4]
18 even though he had filled their houses with good.
That is why the way of life of the wicked is far from me.
¹⁹ The righteous see this and are glad.
The innocent mock them, saying,
²⁰ “Surely our adversaries have been erased!
Fire has eaten up their abundance.”

²¹ Be reconciled with God.
Be at peace with him.
Then good will come to you.
²² Accept teaching from his mouth,
and set his words in your heart.
²³ If you turn to the Almighty, you will be built up.
If you want to put injustice far from your tent,
²⁴ throw your purest gold ^[5] into the dust
and your gold from Ophir upon the rocks in the ravines.
²⁵ Then the Almighty will be your purest gold
and your most precious silver.
²⁶ Then you will find pleasure in the Almighty,
and you will lift up your face to God.
²⁷ You will pray to God, and he will hear you,
and you will fulfill your vows.
²⁸ You will decide on a matter, and it will be done for you,
and light will shine on your ways.
²⁹ When people are brought low,
and you say, “Lift them up,”
God will save the downcast.
³⁰ He will deliver even the person who is not innocent,
who will escape by the purity of your hands.

² Even today my complaint is bitter. ^[6]
His ^[7] hand weighs heavily on me despite my groaning. ^[8]
3 I wish I knew where I could find him,
so that I could come to his place for judgment.
⁴ Then I would lay out my case before him,
and I would fill my mouth with arguments.
⁵ I would know what words he would use to respond to me,
and I would consider what he would say to me.
⁶ Would he use his great power to press charges against me?
No, he will certainly give me a hearing.
⁷ There, an upright man could argue with him,
and I would be delivered from my judge forever.
⁸ But if I walk to the east, he is not there.
If I go back to the west, I find no sign of him.
⁹ When he is at work in the north, I do not detect him.
When he turns to the south, I do not see him.
¹⁰ But I am sure he knows the way I take.
When he has tested me, I will come out like gold.
¹¹ My feet have followed his footsteps closely.
I have kept to his way, and I have not turned aside.
¹² I have not departed from the command from his lips.
I have treasured the sayings from his mouth in my heart. ^[9]

¹³ He stands alone.
Who can make him change?
Whatever his soul desires, he will do.
¹⁴ He carries out his decrees against me,
and he has so many of them!
¹⁵ That is why I am in a panic in his presence.
When I think about this, I dread him.
¹⁶ God has made me lose heart.
The Almighty has terrified me.
¹⁷ Nevertheless, I am not silenced by the darkness,
by the dark cloud that covers my face.

Job 24

¹ Why are appointments never scheduled by the Almighty?
Why do those who know him never see such days?
² People move boundary stones.
They steal a flock and take it to pasture.
³ They drive away donkeys that belong to the fatherless.
They seize the widow’s ox as collateral.
⁴ They shove the poor out of the way.
The oppressed people of the land hide together.
⁵ They go out to their labor, like wild donkeys in the wilderness,
    looking for food.
The wasteland is their only source of food for themselves
    and their children.
⁶ They gather their straw in the open countryside.
They glean leftovers in the vineyard of the wicked.
⁷ They spend the night naked, without clothing.
They have no covering from the cold.
⁸ They are soaked by heavy rain from the mountains.
They cling to a cliff for shelter.

⁹ The wicked tear away a fatherless child from its mother’s breast.
They take a poor mother’s nursing baby as collateral.

¹⁰ The poor walk around naked, without clothing.
They pick up sheaves but are still hungry.
¹¹ They press olive oil among the terraces of olive trees.
They tread winepresses, but they remain thirsty.
¹² The dying people ^[10] of the city groan,
and wounded souls cry out for help,
but God does not bring charges against anyone.

¹³ There are people who rebel against the light.
They do not acknowledge its ways or dwell in its paths.
¹⁴ At the end of the daylight ^[11] a murderer arises,
and he kills the poor and needy.
At night he acts as a thief.
¹⁵ The eye of an adulterer keeps watch for twilight.
He says, “No eye can get a good look at me.”
He wears a mask over his face.
¹⁶ In the dark of night he digs into houses.
By day such people hide inside.
They keep away from the light.
¹⁷ For all of them, morning is their darkness. ^[12]
They are familiar with the sudden terror of darkness.
¹⁸ They float by like foam on the surface of the water.
Their portion of the land is cursed,
so no one turns onto the road to their vineyards.
¹⁹ As drought and heat snatch away the water from the snow,
the grave snatches away a sinner.
²⁰ The womb forgets him.
A worm finds him sweet.
He will no longer be remembered.
Wickedness is broken like a tree.

²¹ He feeds on ^[13] the childless woman,
and he does nothing good for the widow.

²² But God drags away the mighty by his strength.
He rises up, so the wicked have no confidence in their lives.
²³ God lets them be secure, and they prop themselves up,
but God’s eyes are on their ways.
²⁴ They are high and mighty for a little while,
but then they are gone.
They are brought low like all the rest.
They are gathered together, like ears of grain that have been cut off.

²⁵ So then, who can make me out to be a liar?
Who can reduce my words to nothing?

Footnotes

1. Job 22:8 The connection of this verse to the context is unclear. It may be an excuse that greedy rich people use for not helping the poor or an indirect accusation of Job.
2. Job 22:12 Or he sees
3. Job 22:16 Or with no time to get away
4. Job 22:17 The reading us follows the ancient versions. The Hebrew reads them.
5. Job 22:24 Or gold nuggets
6. Job 23:2 The translation bitter follows the ancient versions. The Hebrew reads rebellious.
7. Job 23:2 The translation his follows the ancient versions. The Hebrew reads my.
8. Job 23:2 Or my hand is weighed down by my groaning
9. Job 23:12 Or I have treasured the sayings from his mouth more than my allotted inheritance
10. Job 24:12 Variant the people
11. Job 24:14 The Hebrew reads at the light. The parallelisms in the following verses suggest that this refers to dusk rather than to dawn.
12. Job 24:17 This is the same Hebrew word often translated shadow of death. Here it seems to be the similar word that means darkness.
13. Job 24:21 Or preys on