Immerse: Poets Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 301
15:31–16:12
Job
Let them no longer fool themselves by trusting in empty riches,
for emptiness will be their only reward.
They will be cut down in the prime of life;
their branches will never again be green.
They will be like a vine whose grapes are harvested too early,
like an olive tree that loses its blossoms before the fruit can
form.
For the godless are barren.
Their homes, enriched through bribery, will burn.
They conceive trouble and give birth to evil.
Their womb produces deceit.”
Then Job spoke again:
“I have heard all this before.
What miserable comforters you are!
Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air?
What makes you keep on talking?
I could say the same things if you were in my place.
I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.
But if it were me, I would encourage you.
I would try to take away your grief.
Instead, I suffer if I defend myself,
and I suffer no less if I refuse to speak.
“O God, you have ground me down
and devastated my family.
As if to prove I have sinned, you’ve reduced me to skin and bones.
My gaunt flesh testifies against me.
God hates me and angrily tears me apart.
He snaps his teeth at me
and pierces me with his eyes.
People jeer and laugh at me.
They slap my cheek in contempt.
A mob gathers against me.
God has handed me over to sinners.
He has tossed me into the hands of the wicked.
“I was living quietly until he shattered me.
He took me by the neck and broke me in pieces.
Then he set me up as his target,
289
