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[1]Then Job answered and said,
[2]I know of a truth that it is so: for how shall a mortal man be just before the Lord?
[3]For 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.
[4]For he is wise in mind, and mighty, and great: who has hardened himself against him and endured?
[5]Who wears out the mountains, and men know it not: who overturns them in anger.
[6]Who shakes the earth under heaven from its foundations, and its pillars totter.
[7]Who commands the sun, and it rises not; and he seals up the stars.
[8]Who alone has stretched out the heavens, and walks on the sea as on firm ground.
[9]Who makes Pleias, and Hesperus, and Arcturus, and the chambers of the south.
[10]Who does great and unsearchable things; glorious also and excellent things, innumerable.
[11]If ever he should go beyond me, I shall not see him: if he should pass by me, neither thus have I known it.
[12]If he would take away, who shall turn him back? or who shall say to him, What hast thou done?
[13]For if he has turned away his anger, the whales under heaven have stooped under him.
[14]Oh then that he would hearken to me, or judge my cause.
[15]For though I be righteous, he will not hearken to me: I will intreat his judgment.
[16]And if I should call and he should not hearken, I cannot believe that he has listened to my voice.
[17]Let him not crush me with a dark storm: but he has made by bruises many without cause.
[18]For he suffers me not to take breath, but he has filled me with bitterness.
[19]For indeed he is strong in power: who then shall resist his judgment?
[20]For though I should seem righteous, my mouth will be profane: and though I should seem blameless, I shall be proved perverse.
[21]For even if I have sinned, I know it not in my soul: but my life is taken away.
[22]Wherefore I said, Wrath slays the great and mighty man.
[23]For the worthless die, but the righteous are laughed to scorn.
[24]For 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?
[25]But my life is swifter than a post: my days have fled away, and they knew it not.
[26]Or again, is there a trace of their path left by ships? or is there one of the flying eagle as it seeks its prey?
[27]And if I should say, I will forget to speak, I will bow down my face and groan;
[28]I quake in all my limbs, for I know that thou wilt not leave me alone as innocent.
[29]But since I am ungodly, why have I not died?
[30]For if I should wash myself with snow, and purge myself with pure hands,
[31]thou hadst thoroughly plunged me in filth, and my garment had abhorred me.
[32]For thou art not man like me, with whom I could contend, that we might come together to judgment.
[33]Would that he our mediator were present, and a reprover, and one who should hear the cause between both.
[34]Let him remove his rod from me, and let not his fear terrify me:
[35]so shall I not be afraid, but I will speak: for I am not thus conscious of guilt.
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