| Chapter 13 |
1 | Lo, my eye hath seen all this, my ear hath heard and understood it.
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2 | What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior to you.
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3 | Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.
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4 | But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.
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5 | O that ye would altogether hold your peace and it would be your wisdom.
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6 | Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips.
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7 | Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him?
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8 | Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God?
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9 | Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him?
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10 | He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons.
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11 | Shall not his excellence make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you?
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12 | Your remembrances are like to ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.
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13 | Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will.
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14 | Why do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand?
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15 | Though he shall slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain my own ways before him.
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16 | He also shall be my salvation: for a hypocrite shall not come before him.
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17 | Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears.
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18 | Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.
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19 | Who is he that will plead with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall expire.
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20 | Only do not two things to me: then will I not hide myself from thee.
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21 | Withdraw thy hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid.
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22 | Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me.
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23 | How many are my iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.
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24 | Why hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thy enemy?
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25 | Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?
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26 | For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.
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27 | Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly to all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.
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28 | And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth-eaten.
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