Bible in a Year · Day 152 of 365
Today’s reading: Job 18–20 (3 chapters)
Read the passage below, or open your own Bible and follow along. The text here is the World English Bible, a public-domain translation, printed in full so the day’s reading is all on one page.
About Job
Job is the Bible's longest argument about suffering. A wealthy and blameless man loses his children, his wealth, and his health, and three friends arrive to explain why. Their explanations are tidy and mostly wrong, and the arguments run for chapters. Job insists on his integrity, demands a hearing, and refuses the comfort offered to him. When God finally answers from a whirlwind, he does not explain the reason for Job's suffering. He asks questions, and Job is undone and quieted. The book ends with a restored man who still does not have the answer he wanted.
What to watch for. Watch the difference between what the friends say about God and what God says about them at the end. Notice that the book allows grief to be loud and unanswered for a long time.
Job 18
1Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, 2“How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak. 3Why are we counted as animals, which have become unclean in your sight? 4You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed out of its place? 5“Yes, the light of the wicked shall be put out, The spark of his fire shall not shine.
6The light shall be dark in his tent. His lamp above him shall be put out. 7The steps of his strength shall be shortened. His own counsel shall cast him down. 8For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh. 9A snare will take him by the heel. A trap will catch him. 10A noose is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him on the path.
11Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall chase him at his heels. 12His strength shall be famished. Calamity shall be ready at his side. 13The members of his body shall be devoured. The firstborn of death shall devour his members. 14He shall be rooted out of the security of his tent. He shall be brought to the king of terrors. 15There shall dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulfur shall be scattered on his habitation.
16His roots shall be dried up beneath. Above shall his branch be cut off. 17His memory shall perish from the earth. He shall have no name in the street. 18He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. 19He shall have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he lived. 20Those who come after shall be astonished at his day, as those who went before were frightened.
21Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. This is the place of him who doesn’t know God.”
Job 19
1Then Job answered, 2“How long will you torment me, and crush me with words? 3You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me. 4If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself. 5If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach;
6know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net. 7“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice. 8He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths. 9He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. 10He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope he has plucked up like a tree.
11He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries. 12His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent. 13“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. 14My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me. 15Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.
16I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth. 17My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother. 18Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me. 19All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me. 20My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21“Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me. 22Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh? 23“Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! 24That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! 25But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth.
26After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God, 27Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger. “My heart is consumed within me. 28If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me, 29be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”
Job 20
1Then Zophar the Naamathite answered, 2“Therefore do my thoughts give answer to me, even by reason of my haste that is in me. 3I have heard the reproof which puts me to shame. The spirit of my understanding answers me. 4Don’t you know this from old time, since man was placed on earth, 5that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment?
6Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds, 7yet he shall perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him shall say, ‘Where is he?’ 8He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found. Yes, he shall be chased away like a vision of the night. 9The eye which saw him shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more see him. 10His children shall seek the favor of the poor. His hands shall give back his wealth.
11His bones are full of his youth, but youth shall lie down with him in the dust. 12“Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue, 13though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth; 14yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom within him. 15He has swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly.
16He shall suck cobra venom. The viper’s tongue shall kill him. 17He shall not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter. 18That for which he labored he shall restore, and shall not swallow it down. According to the substance that he has gotten, he shall not rejoice. 19For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he shall not build it up. 20“Because he knew no quietness within him, he shall not save anything of that in which he delights.
21There was nothing left that he didn’t devour, therefore his prosperity shall not endure. 22In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress shall overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery shall come on him. 23When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating. 24He shall flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow shall strike him through. 25He draws it out, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him.
26All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire shall devour him. It shall consume that which is left in his tent. 27The heavens shall reveal his iniquity. The earth shall rise up against him. 28The increase of his house shall depart. They shall rush away in the day of his wrath. 29This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God.”
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), a public-domain translation. Day numbering follows the calendar year; you can start at Day 1 on any date.
