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📚“Therefore, Job, please hear what I have to say, and listen to all my words. 2 📚See, now I open my mouth, the tongue in my mouth speaks. 3 📚My words come from the uprightness of my heart, and my lips speak knowledge clearly. 4 📚The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me life. 5 📚If you can answer me, set your words in order in front of me; take your stand. 6 📚See, just like you, I belong to God. I too have been formed out of clay. 7 📚Look, no fear of me should terrify you; nor will my hand be heavy on you. 8 📚“You have certainly spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the sound of your words, saying, 9 📚‘I am pure, without transgression. I am innocent. No iniquity is in me.
10 📚See, God finds occasions against me; he counts me as his enemy.
11 📚He puts my feet in the stocks; he watches all my paths.’
12 📚“Look, in this you are not being just. I will answer you that God is greater than man.
13 📚Why do you struggle against him? For he does not give an account of any of his deeds.
14 📚For God speaks once, yes, twice, but man does not perceive it.
15 📚In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, while they slumber on the bed,
16 📚Then he opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction,
17 📚So that he may turn a man from his evil behaviour and keep a man from pride.
18 📚He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
19 📚A man is also chastened by pain on his bed, by anguish in his many bones.
20 📚So that his whole being loathes bread, and his soul the choicest food.
21 📚His flesh wastes away from sight, and his bones, which were not seen, stick out.
22 📚Yes, his soul draws near the grave, and his life to the destroyers.
23 📚If there is a messenger for him, a mediator, one in a thousand, to show man God’s uprightness, 24 📚Then he is gracious to him and says, ‘Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.’
25 📚Then his flesh will become fresher than a child’s; he will return to the days of his youth.
26 📚He will pray to God, and God will show him favour. And he will see God’s face with joy; for God will restore to man his righteousness.
27 📚He looks at men and if anyone says, ‘I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it was not repaid to me in equal measure’,
28 📚He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life will see the light.
29 📚“See, God does all these things. Twice, thrice he does them to a man.
30 📚To bring his soul back from the pit, that the light of life may enlighten him.
31 📚Pay attention, Job; listen to me. Keep silent and I will speak.
32 📚If you have anything to say, answer me. Speak, for I want to justify you.
33 📚If not, listen to me. Keep silent, and I will teach you wisdom”.