Chapter 12

¹Then Job answered,

²“No doubt, but you are the people,

And wisdom shall die with you.

³But I have understanding as well as you;

I am not inferior to you:

Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these?

⁴I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor,

I, who called on God, and he answered.

The just, the blameless man is a joke.

⁵In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune,

It is ready for them whose foot slips.

⁶The tents of robbers prosper,

Those who provoke God are secure;

Who carry their God in their hands.

⁷“But ask the animals, now, and they shall teach you;

The birds of the sky, and they shall tell you.

⁸Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you;

The fish of the sea shall declare to you.

⁹Who doesn’t know that in all these,

The hand of Yahweh has done this,

¹⁰In whose hand is the life of every living thing,

The breath of all mankind?

¹¹Doesn’t the ear try words,

Even as the palate tastes its food?

¹²With aged men is wisdom,

In length of days understanding.

¹³“With God is wisdom and might.

He has counsel and understanding.

¹⁴Behold, he breaks down, and it can’t be built again;

He imprisons a man, and there can be no release.

¹⁵Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up;

Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.

¹⁶With him is strength and wisdom;

The deceived and the deceiver are his.

¹⁷He leads counselors away stripped.

He makes judges fools.

¹⁸He loosens the bond of kings,

He binds their waist with a belt.

¹⁹He leads priests away stripped,

And overthrows the mighty.

²⁰He removes the speech of those who are trusted,

And takes away the understanding of the elders.

²¹He pours contempt on princes,

And loosens the belt of the strong.

²²He uncovers deep things out of darkness,

And brings out to light the shadow of death.

²³He increases the nations, and he destroys them.

He enlarges the nations, and he leads them captive.

²⁴He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth,

And causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.

²⁵They grope in the dark without light.

He makes them stagger like a drunken man.