Then Job answered and said,
No doubt but ye are the people,
And wisdom shall die with you.
But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you:
Yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
I am as one that is a laughing-stock to his neighbor,
I who called upon God, and he answered:
The just, the perfect man is a laughing-stock.
In the thought of him that is at ease there is contempt for misfortune;
It is ready for them whose foot slippeth.
The tents of robbers prosper,
And they that provoke God are secure;
{Or, That bring their god to their hand}Into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee;
And the birds of the heavens, and they shall tell thee:
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee;
And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
Who knoweth not {Or, by}in all these,
That the hand of Jehovah hath wrought this,
In whose hand is the soul of every living thing,
And the {Or, spirit}breath of all mankind?
Doth not the ear try words,
Even as the palate tasteth its food?
{Or, With aged men, ye say, is wisdom}With aged men is wisdom,
And in length of days understanding.
With {Hebrew: him.}God is wisdom and might;
He hath counsel and understanding.
Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again;
He shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up;
Again, he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.
With him is strength and wisdom;
The deceived and the deceiver are his.
He leadeth counsellors away stripped,
And judges maketh he fools.
He looseth the bond of kings,
And he bindeth their loins with a girdle.
He leadeth priests away stripped,
And overthroweth the mighty.
He removeth the speech of the trusty,
And taketh away the understanding of the elders.
He poureth contempt upon princes,
And looseth the belt of the strong.
He uncovereth deep things out of darkness,
And bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
He increaseth the nations, and he destroyeth them:
He enlargeth the nations, and he leadeth them captive.
He taketh away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the {Or, land}earth,
And causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
They grope in the dark without light;
And he maketh them to {Hebrew: wander.}stagger like a drunken man.
Querverweise zu Hiob 12,25 Hiob 12,25
They meet with darkness in the day-time,And grope at noonday as in the night.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man,And {Hebrew: all their wisdom is swallowed up.}are at their wits' end.
And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
Jehovah hath mingled a spirit of perverseness in the midst of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in every work thereof, as a drunken man {Or, goeth astray}staggereth in his vomit.
and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and robbed alway, and there shall be none to save thee.
The earth shall stagger like a drunken man, and shall sway to and fro like a hammock; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again.
We grope for the wall like the blind; yea, we grope as they that have no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the twilight; {Or, we are in dark places like the dead}among them that are lusty we are as dead men.
And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun {Greek: until.}for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.
But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.