¹Then Job answered,

• ²“No doubt, but you are the people,
• and wisdom shall die with you.

• ³But I have understanding as well as you;
• I am not inferior to you.
• Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these?

• ⁴I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor,
• I, who called on God, and he answered.
• The just, the blameless man is a joke.

• ⁵In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune.
• It is ready for them whose foot slips.

• ⁶The tents of robbers prosper.
• Those who provoke God are secure,
• who carry their God in their hands.

• ⁷“But ask the animals, now, and they shall teach you;
• the birds of the sky, and they shall tell you.

• ⁸Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you.
• The fish of the sea shall declare to you.

• ⁹Who doesn’t know that in all these,
• the hand of Yahweh has done this,

• ¹⁰in whose hand is the life of every living thing,
• and the breath of all mankind?

• ¹¹Doesn’t the ear try words,
• even as the palate tastes its food?

• ¹²With aged men is wisdom,
• in length of days understanding.

• ¹³“With God is wisdom and might.
• He has counsel and understanding.

• ¹⁴Behold, he breaks down, and it can’t be built again.
• He imprisons a man, and there can be no release.

• ¹⁵Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up.
• Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.

• ¹⁶With him is strength and wisdom.
• The deceived and the deceiver are his.

• ¹⁷He leads counselors away stripped.
• He makes judges fools.

• ¹⁸He loosens the bond of kings.
• He binds their waist with a belt.

• ¹⁹He leads priests away stripped,
• and overthrows the mighty.

• ²⁰He removes the speech of those who are trusted,
• and takes away the understanding of the elders.

• ²¹He pours contempt on princes,
• and loosens the belt of the strong.

• ²²He uncovers deep things out of darkness,
• and brings out to light the shadow of death.

• ²³He increases the nations, and he destroys them.
• He enlarges the nations, and he leads them captive.

• ²⁴He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth,
• and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.

• ²⁵They grope in the dark without light.
• He makes them stagger like a drunken man.