Job: if only I knew where to find him
1Then Job answered: 2Even today my complaint is rebellion; my hand lies heavy on my groaning. 3If only I knew where to find him, how to get to where he sits! 4I would lay my case out before him and fill my mouth with arguments. 5I would learn the words he answered me with and understand what he said to me. 6Would he contend with me in the fullness of his power? No — he would give me his attention. 7There the upright could argue with him, and I would escape my judge for good. 8Look, I go forward, and he is not there; backward, and I cannot make him out. 9On the left, where he is at work, I cannot see him; he turns to the right, and I catch no sight of him. 10But he knows the way I take; when he has tested me, I will come out gold. 11My foot has held to his track; I have kept his way and not swerved. 12I have not gone back on the command of his lips; I have stored the words of his mouth deeper than my own portion.
He is one, and who can turn him back?
13But he is one, and who can turn him back? What he desires, he does. 14He will finish what he decreed for me, and he has many such things in store. 15That is why I am terrified in his presence. When I think about it, I am afraid of him. 16God has made my heart soft, and the Almighty has terrified me — 17yet I have not been cut off by the darkness, nor by the gloom that covers my face.
