God

as I was when I was young, and God's counsel graced my tent.

Then Shaddai was still with me, my children were around me;

"I call out to you [God], but you don't answer me; I stand up to plead, but you just look at me.

You have turned cruelly against me; with your powerful hand you keep persecuting me.

You snatch me up on the wind and make me ride it; you toss me about in the tempest.

For I know that you will bring me to death, the house assigned to everyone living.

"Surely [God] wouldn't strike at a ruin, if in one's calamity one cried out to him for help.

"What share does God give from above? What is the heritage from Shaddai on high?

Doesn't he see my ways and count all my steps?

then let me be weighed on an honest scale, so that God will know my integrity.

then what would I do if God stood up? Were he to intervene, what answer could I give?

Didn't he who made me in the womb make them too? Didn't the same one shape us both before our birth?

For calamity from God has always terrified me; before his majesty I could never do a thing [like that].

then this too would be a criminal offense, for I would have been lying to God on high.

I wish I had someone who would listen to me! Here is my signature; let Shaddai answer me! I wish I had the indictment my adversary has written!

I would declare to him every one of my steps; I would approach him like a prince.

But then the anger of Elihu the son of Barakh'el the Buzi, from the family of Ram, blazed up against Iyov for thinking he was right and God wrong.

But it is the spirit in a person, the breath from Shaddai, that gives him understanding -

So don't say, 'We found the wise course -Let God defeat him, not a human being.'

It is the Spirit of God that made me, the breath of Shaddai that gives me life.

Look, before God I'm the same as you; I too am fashioned from clay.

Yet [God] finds pretexts for accusing me; he regards me as his enemy.

He puts my feet in the stocks and watches wherever I go.'

"But in this, you are wrong; I will answer you: God is greater than any mortal.

Why do you strive against him? He will not defend his words