Job replied to his three friends

1Then Job said to his three friends,

2“You ◄talk as though/You think► [SAR] that you are the people whom everyone should listen to, and that when you die, there will be no more wise people.

3But I have as much good sense as you do; I am ◄not less wise than/certainly as wise as [LIT]► you.
Certainly everyone knows [RHQ] all that you have said.

4My friends all laugh at me now. Previously I habitually requested God to help me, and he answered/helped me. I am righteous, a very godly man [DOU], but everyone laughs at me.

5Those like you who have no troubles make fun of me; they cause those like me who are already suffering to have more troubles.

6Bandits live peacefully, and no one threatens those who cause God to become angry;
their own strength is the god that they worship.

7“But ask the wild animals what they know about God, and if they could speak they would teach you. If you could ask the birds, they would tell you.

8If you could ask the creatures that crawl on the ground, or the fish in the sea, they would tell you about God.

9All of them certainly know [RHQ] that it is Yahweh who has made them with his hands.

10He directs the lives of all living creatures; he gives breath to all us humans to enable us to remain alive.

11And when we [SYN] hear what other people like you say, we [RHQ] think carefully about what they say to determine what is good and what is bad,
like we [SYN] taste food to determine what is good and what is bad.

12Old people are often very wise, and because of having lived many years, they understand much,

13but God is wise and very powerful; he has good sense and understands everything.

14If he tears something down, no one can rebuild it; if he puts someone in prison, no one can open the prison doors to allow that person to escape.

15When he prevents rain from falling, everything dries up. When he causes a lot of rain to fall, the result is that there are floods.

16He is the one who is truly strong and wise; he rules over those who deceive others and those whom they deceive.

17He sometimes causes the king’s officials to no longer be wise, and he causes judges to become foolish.

18He takes from kings the robes that they wear and puts loincloths around their waists, causing them to become slaves.

19He takes from priests the sacred clothes that they wear, with the result that they no longer can do their work, and takes power from those who rule others.

20He sometimes causes those whom others trust to be unable to speak, and he causes old men to no longer have good sense.

21He causes those who have authority to be despised, and he causes those who are powerful to no longer have any power/strength.

22He causes things that are hidden in the darkness to be revealed.

23He causes some nations to become very great, and later he destroys them; he causes the territory of some nations to become much larger, and later he causes them to be defeated and their people to be scattered.

24He causes some rulers to become foolish/stupid, and then he causes them to wander around, lost, in an barren desert.

25They grope around in the darkness, without any light, and he causes them to stagger like [SIM] people who are drunk.”