Job 12

Job’s Fourth Speech: A Response to Zophar

1Then Job spoke again:

2“You people really know everything, don’t you?

And when you die, wisdom will die with you!

3Well, I know a few things myself—

and you’re no better than I am.

Who doesn’t know these things you’ve been saying?

4Yet my friends laugh at me,

for I call on God and expect an answer.

I am a just and blameless man,

yet they laugh at me.

5People who are at ease mock those in trouble.

They give a push to people who are stumbling.

6But robbers are left in peace,

and those who provoke God live in safety—

though God keeps them in his power.*

7“Just ask the animals, and they will teach you.

Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.

8Speak to the earth, and it will instruct you.

Let the fish in the sea speak to you.

9For they all know

that my disaster* has come from the hand of the Lord.

10For the life of every living thing is in his hand,

and the breath of every human being.

11The ear tests the words it hears

just as the mouth distinguishes between foods.

12Wisdom belongs to the aged,

and understanding to the old.