Old Testament · Poetry and wisdom
Job chapter 12
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Then Job answered:No question about it — you are the people who count,
and when you die, dies with you.I have a too, the same as you.
I don’t come up short next to any of you.
And who doesn’t already know things like these?I am a joke to my own friends —
the man who called on God and got an answer.
A joke. The just man. .Disaster gets nothing but contempt
from a man who is sitting comfortably —
it is what he keeps ready
for anyone whose foot has already started to slip.Meanwhile the tents of raiders are left in peace,
and the men who spit in God’s face live secure —
men who .Go ask the animals — they will teach you.
Ask the birds in the sky — they will tell you.Or talk to the ground, and the ground will teach you.
The fish in the sea will spell it out for you.Which one of them doesn’t know
that the hand of did all this?In his hand is the of every living thing
and the of every human body.Doesn’t the ear taste words
the way the mouth tastes food?Wisdom belongs to gray heads, you keep saying.
Understanding comes with a long life.Wisdom is his. Strength is his.
The advice and the understanding are his.Whatever he tears down is not going back up.
The man he — nobody opens that door.He holds the water back, and everything dries out.
He turns it loose, and it flips the land over.Strength is his, and so is .
The man who wanders off and the man who leads him off — both belong to him.He walks advisers away stripped bare
and turns judges into fools.He
and ties a rag around their waists.He walks priests away stripped bare
and topples the men who have been standing the longest.He takes the speech out of men everyone trusts
and lifts the judgment right out of the elders.He pours contempt over noblemen
and loosens the belt of the strong.He
and drags into daylight.He makes nations great, then wipes them out.
He spreads nations wide, then marches them off.He takes the mind out of the men who lead a country
and sets them wandering in an with no road in it.They feel their way through the dark with no light in it.
He has them staggering like drunks.