¹And so Job, please listen to my address,

And give ear to all my words.

²Behold, I pray, I have opened my mouth;

My tongue has spoken in my oral cavity.

³My words are from the uprightness of my heart,

And my lips speak knowledge clearly.

⁴The spirit of God made me,

And the breath of the Almighty gave me life.

⁵If you can, answer me,

Set out your arguments before me;

Take your stand.

⁶You see, I am here,

As you asked,

On behalf of God.

I too was formed from clay.

⁷Behold, the shock of me need not frighten you,

Nor will my demands weigh down on you.

⁸You certainly spoke in my ears,

And I heard the sound of your words,

When, Job, you said,

⁹‘I am pure, without transgression;

I am faultless,

And there is no iniquity in me.

¹⁰See how he finds a pretext against me;

He considers me as his enemy.

¹¹He places my feet in fetters;

He watches all my paths.’

¹²Behold, in this argumentation you are not just,

I answer you,

For God is greater than man.

¹³Why do you strive against him,

In that he does not answer you

Concerning any of his affairs?

¹⁴For on one occasion God may speak,

And on a second occasion he may not attend to the matter.

¹⁵In a dream, a nightly vision,

When sleep falls on men,

In slumber on the bed,

¹⁶He then opens up the ears of men,

And in correcting them,

He seals them,

¹⁷To remove man from his dealings

And to put pride out of sight of men.

¹⁸He spares his body from the pit,

And his life from the piercing of a missile.

¹⁹He is corrected with pain on his bed,

And with mighty conflict in his bones,

²⁰So that his condition in life makes him lose appetite for food,

And it makes his being reject exquisite fare.

²¹His flesh is consumed so as not to be visible,

And his bones stick out, which previously would not be seen.

²²And his being draws nearer to the pit,

And his life to the killers.

²³If there is an interpreting angel by his side

– One out of a thousand –

To declare to a man whether he is upright,

²⁴Then he will be merciful to him and will say,

‘Deliver him from going down into the pit;

I have found a ransom.’

²⁵His flesh will be made fresher than that of his youth;

He will return to the days of his young adulthood.

²⁶He will make supplication to God,

And he will accept him,

And he will see his face with a shout for joy,

And he will render to man his righteousness.

²⁷He will look upon man,

And if a man says,

‘I have sinned and perverted what is upright,

And it did not satisfy me’,

²⁸He will deliver his being from passing into the pit,

And his life will see light.

²⁹See how God performs all these things,

Twice or three times with man,

³⁰To bring back his life from the pit,

And to be enlightened in the light of life.

³¹Hearken, Job,

And listen to me;

Be silent,

And I will speak.

³²If you have words,

Answer me.

Speak,

For I wish to justify you.

³³If not, listen to me;

Be silent,

And I will teach you wisdom.”