Job

¹ Job continued by saying:

² The question is, 'How can mere mortals get right with God?'

³ what chance would we have? Not one in a thousand!

⁴ who could take him on and come out in one piece?

⁵ flips them on their heads on a whim.

⁶ rocks it down to its very foundations.

⁷ he pulls the blinds on the stars.

⁸ and strides on the waves of the sea.

⁹ the Pleiades and Alpha Centauri.

¹⁰ his miracle-surprises can't be counted.

¹¹ quietly but surely he's active, and I miss it.

¹² Who's going to say, 'Hey, what are you doing?'

¹³ even dragon-bred monsters cringe before him.

¹⁴ construct a defense that would influence God?

¹⁵ I can only throw myself on the Judge's mercy.

¹⁶ then, and only then, would I believe that he'd heard me.

¹⁷ beating me up, black and blue, for no good reason.

¹⁸ piles bitterness upon bitterness.

¹⁹ If it's a question of justice, who'll serve him the subpoena?

²⁰ blameless as I am, my defense just makes me sound worse.

²¹ I don't understand what's going on. I hate my life!

²² that God destroys the good right along with the bad.

²³ he folds his arms, aloof from the despair of the innocent.

²⁴ he installs judges who can't tell right from wrong. If he's not responsible, who is?

²⁵ too fast for me to even glimpse the good.

²⁶ like an eagle plummeting to its prey.

²⁷ I'll look on the bright side and force a smile,'

²⁸ since it's clear you're not going to let up.

²⁹ so what's the use of protests or appeals?

³⁰ and wash myself with the strongest soap I can find,

³¹ so nobody could stand me for the stink.

³² We'll never enter a courtroom as peers.

³³ to step in and let me get on with life—

³⁴ to free me from this terror so I could breathe again.

³⁵ As things stand, there is no way I can do it.