Job’s Ninth Speech: A Response to Bildad

1Then Job spoke again:

2“How you have helped the powerless!

How you have saved the weak!

3How you have enlightened my stupidity!

What wise advice you have offered!

4Where have you gotten all these wise sayings?

Whose spirit speaks through you?

5“The dead tremble—

those who live beneath the waters.

6The underworlda is naked in God’s presence.

The place of destructionb is uncovered.

7God stretches the northern sky over empty space

and hangs the earth on nothing.

8He wraps the rain in his thick clouds,

and the clouds don’t burst with the weight.

9He covers the face of the moon,c

shrouding it with his clouds.

10He created the horizon when he separated the waters;

he set the boundary between day and night.

11The foundations of heaven tremble;

they shudder at his rebuke.

12By his power the sea grew calm.

By his skill he crushed the great sea monster.d

13His Spirit made the heavens beautiful,

and his power pierced the gliding serpent.

14These are just the beginning of all that he does,

merely a whisper of his power.

Who, then, can comprehend the thunder of his power?”