Job's Reply to Bildad
You Have Really Been Helpful
1 Job said:
2 You have really been helpful
to someone weak and weary.
3 You have given great advice
and wonderful wisdom
to someone truly in need.
4 How can anyone possibly speak
with such understanding?
5 Remember the terrible trembling
of those in the world of the dead
below the mighty ocean.
6 Nothing in that land
of death and destruction
is hidden from God,
7 who hung the northern sky
and suspended the earth
on empty space.
8 God stores water in clouds,
but they don't burst,
9 and he wraps them around
the face of the moon.
10 On the surface of the ocean,
God has drawn a boundary line
between light and darkness.
11 And columns supporting the sky
tremble at his command.
12 By his power and wisdom,
God conquered the force
of the mighty ocean.
13 The heavens became bright
when he breathed,
and the escaping sea monster
died at his hands.
14 These things are merely a whisper
of God's power at work.
How little we would understand
if this whisper
ever turned into thunder!
Job
1-2 What a big help you are to me—
poor, weak man that I am!
3 You give such good advice
and share your knowledge with a fool like me!
4 Who do you think will hear all your words?
Who inspired you to speak like this?
[Bildad]
5 The spirits of the dead tremble
in the waters under the earth.
6 The world of the dead lies open to God;
no covering shields it from his sight.
7 God stretched out the northern sky
and hung the earth in empty space.
8 It is God who fills the clouds with water
and keeps them from bursting with the weight.
9 He hides the full moon behind a cloud.
10 He divided light from darkness
by a circle drawn on the face of the sea.
11 When he threatens the pillars that hold up the sky,
they shake and tremble with fear.
12 It is his strength that conquered the sea;
by his skill he destroyed the monster Rahab.
13 It is his breath that made the sky clear,
and his hand that killed the escaping monster.
14 But these are only hints of his power,
only the whispers that we have heard.
Who can know how truly great God is?