Job 41-42

Job 41

¹“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish hook, or press down his tongue with a cord?

²Can you put a rope into his nose, or pierce his jaw through with a hook?

³Will he make many petitions to you, or will he speak soft words to you?

⁴Will he make a covenant with you, that you should take him for a servant forever?

⁵Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your girls?

⁶Will traders barter for him? Will they part him among the merchants?

⁷Can you fill his skin with barbed irons, or his head with fish spears?

⁸Lay your hand on him. Remember the battle, and do so no more.

⁹Behold, the hope of him is in vain. Won’t one be cast down even at the sight of him?

¹⁰None is so fierce that he dare stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me?

¹¹Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Everything under the heavens is mine.

¹²“I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, nor his mighty strength, nor his goodly frame.

¹³Who can strip off his outer garment? Who will come within his jaws?

¹⁴Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror.

¹⁵Strong scales are his pride, shut up together with a close seal.

¹⁶One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.

¹⁷They are joined to one another. They stick together, so that they can’t be pulled apart.

¹⁸His sneezing flashes out light. His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.

¹⁹Out of his mouth go burning torches. Sparks of fire leap out.

²⁰Out of his nostrils a smoke goes, as of a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.

²¹His breath kindles coals. A flame goes out of his mouth.

²²There is strength in his neck. Terror dances before him.

²³The flakes of his flesh are joined together. They are firm on him. They can’t be moved.

²⁴His heart is as firm as a stone, yes, firm as the lower millstone.

²⁵When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid. They retreat before his thrashing.

²⁶If one attacks him with the sword, it can’t prevail; nor the spear, the dart, nor the pointed shaft.

²⁷He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood.

²⁸The arrow can’t make him flee. Sling stones are like chaff to him.

²⁹Clubs are counted as stubble. He laughs at the rushing of the javelin.

³⁰His undersides are like sharp potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.

³¹He makes the deep to boil like a pot. He makes the sea like a pot of ointment.

³²He makes a path shine after him. One would think the deep had white hair.

³³On earth there is not his equal, that is made without fear.

³⁴He sees everything that is high. He is king over all the sons of pride.”

Job 42

¹Then Job answered the LORD:

²“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be restrained.

³You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ therefore I have uttered that which I didn’t understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know.

⁴You said, ‘Listen, now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you will answer me.’

⁵I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.

⁶Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

⁷It was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.

⁸Now therefore, take to yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept him, that I not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.”

⁹So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the LORD commanded them, and the LORD accepted Job.

¹⁰The LORD restored Job’s prosperity when he prayed for his friends. The LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.

¹¹Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been of his acquaintance before, came to him and ate bread with him in his house. They comforted him, and consoled him concerning all the evil that the LORD had brought on him. Everyone also gave him a piece of money, and everyone a ring of gold.

¹²So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand female donkeys.

¹³He had also seven sons and three daughters.

¹⁴He called the name of the first, Jemimah; and the name of the second, Keziah; and the name of the third, Keren Happuch.

¹⁵In all the land were no women found so beautiful as the daughters of Job. Their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers.

¹⁶After this Job lived one hundred forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, to four generations.

¹⁷So Job died, being old and full of days.