- 1Then Job answered,
- 2“No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.
- 3But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these?
- 4I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke.
- 5In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips.
- 6The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure, who carry their God in their hands.
- 7“But ask the animals, now, and they shall teach you; the birds of the sky, and they shall tell you.
- 8Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you. The fish of the sea shall declare to you.
- 9Who doesn’t know that in all these, the hand of the Lord has done this,
- 10in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?
- 11Doesn’t the ear try words, even as the palate tastes its food?
- 12With aged men is wisdom, in length of days understanding.
- 13“With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding.
- 14Behold, he breaks down, and it can’t be built again. He imprisons a man, and there can be no release.
- 15Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up. Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.
- 16With him is strength and wisdom. The deceived and the deceiver are his.
- 17He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools.
- 18He loosens the bond of kings. He binds their waist with a belt.
- 19He leads priests away stripped, and overthrows the mighty.
- 20He removes the speech of those who are trusted, and takes away the understanding of the elders.
- 21He pours contempt on princes, and loosens the belt of the strong.
- 22He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings out to light the shadow of death.
- 23He increases the nations, and he destroys them. He enlarges the nations, and he leads them captive.
- 24He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
- 25They grope in the dark without light. He makes them stagger like a drunken man.