Job’s reply
23
📖Then Job answered and said, 2 📚“Even today my complaint is bitter. My hand is heavy on my groaning. 3 📚Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come to his seat! 4 📚I would set my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. 5 📚I would know the words he would give in answer, and understand what he would say to me. 6 📚Would he oppose me with his great power? No, but he would give his attention to me. 7 📚There the righteous could dispute with him, and I would be delivered forever from my judge. 8 📚“Look, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I do not perceive him. 9 📚When he is at work on the left, I cannot see him; when he turns to the right I cannot see him.
10 📚But he knows the way that I take. When he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
11 📚My foot has held to his steps; I have kept to his ways and not turned aside.
12 📚Nor have I turned back from the command of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
13 📚“But he alone decides, and who can change him? And whatever his soul desires, that he does.
14 📚He carries out what is appointed for me. And many such plans are with him. 15 📚Therefore I am fearful in his presence. When I consider, I am afraid of him.
16 📚For God makes me faint-hearted, and the Almighty frightens me.
17 📚Because I am not cut off from the darkness, nor from the dense darkness that covers my face.