Job 27:1-23 NIV
Job’s Final Word to His Friends
1And Job
continued his discourse:
2“As
surely as God lives, who has denied me justice,
the
Almighty, Who has made my life bitter,
3as long
as I have life within me,
the
breath of God in my nostrils,
4my lips
will not say anything wicked,
and my
tongue will not utter lies.
5I will
never admit you are in the right;
till I
die, I will not deny my integrity.
6I will
maintain my innocence and never let go of it;
my
conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.
7“May my
enemy be like the wicked,
my
adversary like the unjust!
8For what
hope have the godless when they are cut off,
when God
takes away their life?
9Does God
listen to their cry
when
distress comes upon them?
10Will
they find delight in the Almighty?
Will
they call on God at all times?
11“I will
teach you about the power of God;
the ways
of the Almighty I will not conceal.
12You have
all seen this yourselves.
Why then
this meaningless talk?
13“Here is
the fate God allots to the wicked,
the
heritage a ruthless man receives from the Almighty:
14However
many his children, their fate is the sword;
his
offspring will never have enough to eat.
15The
plague will bury those who survive him,
and
their widows will not weep for them.
16Though
he heaps up silver like dust
and
clothes like piles of clay,
17what he
lays up the righteous will wear,
and the
innocent will divide his silver.
18The
house he builds is like a moth’s cocoon,
like a
hut made by a watchman.
19He lies
down wealthy, but will do so no more;
when he
opens his eyes, all is gone.
20Terrors
overtake him like a flood;
a
tempest snatches him away in the night.
21The east
wind carries him off, and he is gone;
it
sweeps him out of his place.
22It hurls
itself against him without mercy
as he
flees headlong from its power.
23It claps
its hands in derision
and
hisses him out of his place.”
CHAPTER
27
After
having delivered the preceding discourse, it was now Zophar's turn to speak. Job appears to have paused to see if any of
his friends chose to make any reply; but finding them all silent, virtually admitting defeat, after a pause he resumed his discourse.
Job's discourse here is
called a parable (משׁל mâshâl), the title of Solomon's proverbs, because it was grave
and weighty, and very instructive, and he spoke as one having authority. A parable is applied in the East to a
figurative embodiment of wisdom in poetic form.
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