Job

¹ Job answered:

² and when you die there'll be no one left to tell us how to live.

³ I don't intend to play second fiddle to you. It doesn't take an expert to know these things.

⁴ 'So that's the man who had conversations with God!' Ridiculed without mercy: 'Look at the man who never did wrong!'

⁵ for the well-fixed to pour scorn on the strugglers.

⁶ insolent blasphemers live in luxury; they've bought and paid for a god who'll protect them.

⁷ let the birds tell you what's going on.

⁸ Listen—the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories.

⁹ that God is sovereign, that he holds all things in his hand—

¹⁰ every breathing creature?

¹¹ as common as the sense of taste?

¹² that you have to grow old before you understand life?

¹³ from him we learn how to live, and also what to live for.

¹⁴ if he locks people up, they're locked up for good.

¹⁵ if he lets it loose, there's a flood.

¹⁶ both deceived and deceiver must answer to him.

¹⁷ exposes judges as witless fools.

¹⁸ then ties a rag around their waists.

¹⁹ and fires high officials from their jobs.

²⁰ deprives elders of their good sense and wisdom.

²¹ disarms the strong and mighty.

²² hauls deepest darkness into the noonday sun.

²³ builds up some and abandons others.

²⁴ and sends them off into no man's land.

²⁵ lurching and staggering like drunks.