Job 31 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Set in the patriarchal era, roughly 2000 to 1500 BC, in a world of family-run herds and no priesthood or temple; the book itself was written down much later
Location
The land of Uz, most likely east or southeast of Israel in the region of Edom or northern Arabia, at the town gate and ash heap where community disputes were settled
Audience
Israelite readers wrestling with why upright people suffer, and with the popular assumption that misfortune always proves hidden sin
Situation
Job closes his long defence with a sworn oath of innocence, listing sin after sin he has not committed and calling down curses on himself if he is lying. He ends by challenging God to answer him in writing, and with that his words stop.
Key Background
An oath of clearing was a recognised legal move in the ancient Near East: when no witness could settle a case, the accused swore self-curses before the deity, and the burden shifted to the accuser or to God to respond. Job's list reaches far past outward acts into lust, fair wages for servants, hospitality to strangers, and even secret gladness at an enemy's ruin, which is a strikingly interior standard for its time. His mention of kissing his hand toward the sun and moon points to widespread astral worship in the region, something he insists he never joined.
I an with my own eyes. So how could I let them fix on a young woman?
What share does God hand down from above? What inheritance comes from the Almighty on the heights?
Isn't it ruin for the crooked man, disaster for people who make a living out of harm?
Doesn't he see the roads I take? Doesn't he count every step I make?
If I have walked with what is false, if my foot has hurried toward a lie —
let him weigh me on scales, and God will find out my is real.
If my stride has swerved off the road, if my heart has gone after whatever my eyes wanted, if anything dirty has stuck to my hands —
then let me plant and let someone else eat it, and let everything I have grown be torn out by the roots.
If my heart has been talked into another man's wife, if I have waited at my neighbor's door —
then let my own wife grain, and let other men kneel over her.
That is a filthy thing to do. That is a crime the judges have to punish.
It is a fire that burns all the way down to the of ruin, and it would eat my whole harvest out by the roots.
If I have brushed aside the case my servant brought, or my servant girl, when they had a complaint against me —
then what will I do when God up to speak? When he opens the file, what could I answer him?
Didn't the one who made me in the belly make him too? Didn't the same one shape us both in the womb?
If I have held back from the poor the thing they needed, or let the widow's eyes give out from waiting,
if I ate my bread on my own and the orphan got none of it —
no. From the time I was young I raised him like a father, and from the day I was born I was guiding her.
If I have watched a man dying for want of clothes, a man with nothing and no blanket over him,
and his own body did not thank me as it warmed under the wool off my sheep —
if I have raised my hand against an orphan because I could see my own in the —
then let my shoulder tear out of its socket and my arm snap off at the joint.
Because ruin from God was always the thing I was afraid of, and against that weight of his I could do nothing.
If I have made gold the thing I lean on, if I have said to fine gold, "You are what I trust,"
if I have been pleased with myself because I had so much, because my hand had pulled in a fortune,
if I have looked at the sun burning, or the moon walking on in its brightness,
and my heart was secretly talked into it, and my up to my to them —
that too is a crime for the judges, because I would have lied about the God above me.
If I have been glad when a man who hated me went under, if I got worked up because trouble found him —
no. I never my like that, never asked with a curse for the man's life.
The men of my household will tell you: nobody ever left his table still hungry.
No stranger ever had to sleep out in the street. I kept my doors open to the man on the road.
If I have covered up my failures the do, hiding what I did wrong inside my shirt,
because I was afraid of the crowd, because the contempt of the clans terrified me, so I said nothing and would not walk out my own door —
If only somebody would hear me out. Here is my Now let the Almighty answer me. Let the man bringing the case against me put it in writing.
I would carry it on my shoulder where everyone could see. I would tie it on my head like a crown.
I would give him an account of every step I have taken. I would walk up to him like a prince.
If my own land cries out against me and its plowed rows are weeping together,
if I have eaten what it grew without paying for it, if I have taken the breath out of the men who worked it —
then let thorns come up instead of wheat and instead of barley. The words of Job are finished.