CHAPTER 33

                ¹But hear, Job, my speech,

                    and hearken to all my words.

                ²Look, I’ve opened my mouth,

                my tongue speaks on my palate.

                ³My heart’s truth—what I say,

                    and my lips utter lucid knowledge.

                ⁴God’s spirit has made me,

                    and Shaddai’s breath has quickened me.

                ⁵If you can answer me,

                    lay it out before me, take your stance.

                ⁶Why, I am like you to God,

                    from clay I, too, was pinched.

                ⁷Look, fear of me does not dismay you,

                    my urging does not weigh upon you.

                ⁸Why, you said in my ears,

                    and the sound of words I heard:

                ⁹“Pure I am with no wrong,

                    guiltless, I am free of crime.

                ¹⁰Look, He finds pretexts against me,

                    He counts me His enemy.

                ¹¹He puts my feet in stocks,

                    He watches all my ways.”

                ¹²Look, where you fail to be right I will answer you,

                    for God is greater than man.

                ¹³Why do you contend with Him,

                    if He answers not all of man’s words?

                ¹⁴For God speaks in one way

                    or in two, and no one perceives Him:

                ¹⁵In a dream, a night’s vision,

                    when slumber falls upon men,

                          in sleep upon their couch.

                ¹⁶Then He lays bare the ear of men,

                    and terrifies them with reproof,

                ¹⁷to make humankind swerve from its acts

                    to put down pride in a man,

                ¹⁸that he save himself from the Pit

                    and his life from the Current.

                ¹⁹And he is reproved with pain on his couch—

                    shuddering in his bones unrelenting.

                ²⁰His life-breath despises bread,

                    his gullet, desirable food.

                ²¹His flesh wastes away before one’s eyes,

                    and his bones, once unseen, are laid bare.

                ²²And his being draws near to the Pit,

                    his life-breath to the Killers.

                ²³If he had an advocate,

                    one spokesman out of a thousand,

                          to declare for man his uprightness,

                ²⁴he could pity him and say, “Redeem him

                    from going down to the Pit. I found ransom.”

                ²⁵His flesh would become sleeker than in youth,

                    he’d return to the days of his prime.

                ²⁶He entreats God, Who grants him favor,

                    and he sees His face with a joyous cry

                          and He restores to man his right standing.

                ²⁷He sings out to men and says,

                    “I offended, perverted what’s straight,

                          and it was not worth it for me.”

                ²⁸He redeemed his being from crossing to the Pit,

                    and his life-breath enjoys the light.

                ²⁹Look, all this God performs

                    twice or thrice with a man,

                ³⁰to bring back his being from the Pit,

                    to glow in the light of life.

                ³¹Attend, Job, listen to me,

                    be still and I will speak.

                ³²If there are words, answer me.

                    Speak, for I would find you in the right.

                ³³If not—you, listen to me,

                    be still, and I will teach you wisdom.