12 Then Job answered,

² No doubt you are the [only wise] people [in the world], and wisdom will die with you!

³ But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know such things as these [of God’s wisdom and might]?

⁴ I am become one who is a laughingstock to his friend; I, one whom God answered when he called upon Him—a just, upright (blameless) man—laughed to scorn!

⁵ In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune—but it is ready for those whose feet slip.

⁶ The dwellings of robbers prosper; those who provoke God are [apparently] secure; God supplies them abundantly [who have no god but their own hands and power].

⁷ For ask now the animals, and they will teach you [that God does not deal with His creatures according to their character]; ask the birds of the air, and they will tell you;

⁸ Or speak to the earth [with its other forms of life], and it will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare [this truth] to you.

⁹ Who [is so blind as] not to recognize in all these [that good and evil are promiscuously scattered throughout nature and human life] that it is God’s hand which does it [and God’s way]?

¹⁰ In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.

¹¹ Is it not the task of the ear to discriminate between [wise and unwise] words, just as the mouth distinguishes [between desirable and undesirable] food?

¹² With the aged [you say] is wisdom, and with length of days comes understanding.

¹³ But [only] with [God] are [perfect] wisdom and might; He [alone] has [true] counsel and understanding.

¹⁴ Behold, He tears down, and it cannot be built again; He shuts a man in, and none can open.

¹⁵ He withholds the waters, and the land dries up; again, He sends forth [rains], and they overwhelm the land or transform it.

¹⁶ With Him are might and wisdom; the deceived and the deceiver are His [and in His power].

¹⁷ He leads [great and scheming] counselors away stripped and barefoot and makes the judges fools [in human estimation, by overthrowing their plans].

¹⁸ He looses the fetters [ordered] by kings and has [the] waistcloth [of a slave] bound about their [own] loins.

¹⁹ He leads away priests as spoil, and men firmly seated He overturns.

²⁰ He deprives of speech those who are trusted and takes away the discernment and discretion of the aged.

²¹ He pours contempt on princes and loosens the belt of the strong [disabling them, bringing low the pride of the learned].

²² He uncovers deep things out of darkness and brings into light black gloom and the shadow of death.

²³ He makes nations great, and He destroys them; He enlarges nations [and then straitens and shrinks them again], and leads them [away captive].

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

²⁵ They grope in the dark without light, and He makes them to stagger and wander like a drunken man.