Job 27

Living Bible

27 Job’s final defense:

² “I vow by the living God, who has taken away my rights, even the Almighty God who has embittered my soul, ³ that as long as I live, while I have breath from God, ⁴ my lips shall speak no evil, my tongue shall speak no lies. ⁵ I will never, never agree that you are right; until I die I will vow my innocence. ⁶ I am not a sinner—I repeat it again and again. My conscience is clear for as long as I live. ⁷ Those who declare otherwise are my wicked enemies. They are evil men.

⁸ “But what hope has the godless when God cuts him off and takes away his life? ⁹ Will God listen to his cry when trouble comes upon him? ¹⁰ For he does not delight himself in the Almighty or pay any attention to God except in times of crisis.

¹¹ “I will teach you about God— ¹² but really, I don’t need to, for you yourselves know as much about him as I do; yet you are saying all these useless things to me.

¹³ “This is the fate awaiting the wicked from the hand of the Almighty: ¹⁴ If he has a multitude of children, it is so that they will die in war or starve to death. ¹⁵ Those who survive shall be brought down to the grave by disease and plague, with no one to mourn them, not even their wives.

¹⁶ “The evil man may accumulate money like dust, with closets jammed full of clothing— ¹⁷ yes, he may order them made by his tailor, but the innocent shall wear that clothing and shall divide his silver among them. ¹⁸ Every house built by the wicked is as fragile as a spider web, as full of cracks as a leafy booth!

¹⁹ “He goes to bed rich but wakes up to find that all his wealth is gone. ²⁰ Terror overwhelms him, and he is blown away in the storms of the night. ²¹ The east wind carries him away, and he is gone. It sweeps him into eternity. ²² For God shall hurl at him unsparingly. He longs to flee from God. ²³ Everyone will cheer at his death and boo him into eternity.