Job 12

Then Job replied to Zophar and the others. He said, 2 “You are speaking as if you were the people to whom everyone should listen. You seem to believe that you are the only wise people who are now alive. 3 But I have as much good sense as you do. I am just as wise as you are. People certainly know, in general, the things that you have said. \* 4 Before, when I prayed to God for help, God would help me. But now{, because God is not helping me in my suffering,} other people laugh at me. I am righteous and I honor God, but they laugh at me! 5 People like you who have no troubles think that others are suffering because of their sins. You think that God is punishing us and that is why we are suffering. 6 Meanwhile, bandits get rich by robbing people. Those who defiantly disobey God live peacefully. Such people believe that God cannot stop them from doing what they want to do. \* 7 But if the wild animals could speak, and if you asked them {what they know about God}, they would tell you {that God is responsible when someone suffers as I am suffering}. If the birds could speak, and if you asked them {the same question}, they would tell you {the same thing}. 8 If the ground could talk, and if you asked it about God, or if fish could talk and you asked them, they too would tell you that God is responsible when people suffer. \* 9 All of them certainly know that it is God himself who has caused me to suffer. 10 He controls whether all living creatures live or die, including whether any person dies or continues to live. \* 11 We decide whether our food is good or bad by tasting it. In the same way, we think carefully about what we hear people say in order to decide whether it is good or bad advice. {I have listened carefully to you, and I have decided that you are giving me bad advice!} 12 Older people have usually become wise. Because they have lived a long time, they have learned many things. \* 13 God himself is wise and very powerful. He has good sense and he understands everything. 14 Indeed, if God tears something down, no one can build it back up again. If God puts someone in prison, no one can enable that person to escape. 15 Yes, God is so powerful that if he prevents rain from falling, then the water on the earth dries up. If God causes a lot of rain to fall, then water floods onto the land. \* 16 God is the one who is truly strong and wise. He does not let anyone get away with doing wrong or with convincing others to do wrong. 17 {God is so powerful that} he can remove royal advisors from their positions, and he can cause judges to become fools. 18 God can take away the ruling authority that kings have and make those kings become slaves instead. \* 19 God can remove priests from their positions and take the power away from those who have long ruled others. 20 God can cause trusted counselors not to know what to say, and he can cause wise elders no longer to have good sense. 21 God can cause princes to lose the respect of others, and he can cause those who are powerful to become weak. \* 22 God can enable people to understand things that are very difficult to understand. 23 God causes some nations to become very great, but later he destroys them. God enables some nations to enlarge their territory greatly, but later he allows others to conquer them and take their people away as prisoners. \* 24 He causes some human rulers to become foolish. As a result, they try one thing after another without success, as if they were lost in a desert without roads. 25 It is as if they were trying to feel their way in complete darkness. It is as if they were staggering around drunk.” \*