Job 5

¹“Call now; is there any who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?

²For resentment kills the foolish man, and jealousy kills the simple.

³I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habitation.

⁴His children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate. Neither is there any to deliver them,

⁵whose harvest the hungry eats up, and take it even out of the thorns. The snare gapes for their substance.

⁶For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground;

⁷but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

⁸“But as for me, I would seek God. I would commit my cause to God,

⁹who does great things that can’t be fathomed, marvelous things without number;

¹⁰who gives rain on the earth, and sends waters on the fields;

¹¹so that he sets up on high those who are low, those who mourn are exalted to safety.

¹²He frustrates the plans of the crafty, So that their hands can’t perform their enterprise.

¹³He takes the wise in their own craftiness; the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong.

¹⁴They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night.

¹⁵But he saves from the sword of their mouth, even the needy from the hand of the mighty.

¹⁶So the poor has hope, and injustice shuts her mouth.

¹⁷“Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects. Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.

¹⁸For he wounds, and binds up. He injures, and his hands make whole.

¹⁹He will deliver you in six troubles; yes, in seven no evil shall touch you.

²⁰In famine he will redeem you from death; in war, from the power of the sword.

²¹You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, neither shall you be afraid of destruction when it comes.

²²At destruction and famine you shall laugh, neither shall you be afraid of the animals of the earth.

²³For you shall be allied with the stones of the field. The animals of the field shall be at peace with you.

²⁴You shall know that your tent is in peace. You shall visit your fold, and shall miss nothing.

²⁵You shall know also that your offspring shall be great, Your offspring as the grass of the earth.

²⁶You shall come to your grave in a full age, like a shock of grain comes in its season.

²⁷Look this, we have searched it, so it is. Hear it, and know it for your good.”