Job 12  Common English Bible

² Surely you are the people,
    and wisdom will die with you.
³ I am also intelligent;
    I’m not inferior to you.
    Who isn’t like these people?^[a]
4 I’m a joke to friends
        who called to God and he answered;
    the innocent and blameless one is a joke,
⁵     a torch^[b] of contempt to one who is idle,
    a fixed point for slipping feet.

⁶ Raiders’ tents are prosperous
    and God’s provokers secure,
    who carry God in their hands.^[c]
7 But ask Behemoth, and he will teach you,
    the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
⁸     or talk to earth, and it will teach you;
    the fish of the sea will recount it for you.
⁹ Among all these, who hasn’t known
    that the Lord’s hand did this?
¹⁰ In whose grasp is the life of every thing,
    the breath of every person?
¹¹ Doesn’t the ear test words
    and the palate taste food?
¹² “In old age is wisdom;
    understanding in a long life.”

¹³ With him are wisdom and power;
    counsel and understanding are his.
¹⁴ If he tears down, it can’t be rebuilt;
    if he ties a person up, he can’t be set free.
¹⁵ If he restricts water, they have drought;
    if he lets it loose, it overturns the land.
¹⁶ With him are might and success;
    the deceiver and the deceived are his.
¹⁷ He leads advisors away barefoot;
        makes madmen of judges;
¹⁸     unties the belt of kings,
        binds a garment around their loins;
¹⁹     leads priests away barefoot;
    overthrows the well-established;
²⁰     silences the talk of trusted people;
    takes away elders’ discernment;
²¹     pours contempt on royalty;
    loosens the belt of the strong;
²²     discloses deep secrets of darkness,
    makes utter darkness enter the light;
²³     makes nations prominent and destroys them,
    expands nations and leads them astray;
²⁴     takes away the power to think from earth’s leaders,
    making them wander in untraveled wastelands.
²⁵     They feel their way in the dark without light;
        he makes them stumble like drunks.