1 Then Job answered and said:
2 "Today too my complaint is defiant; the hand on me weighs heavier than my groaning.
3 If only I knew how to find him, how to reach his seat!
4 I would set out my case in his presence and fill my mouth with arguments.
5 I would learn the words he would answer me, and grasp what he would tell me.
6 Would he oppose me with his great power? No, he would surely give me a hearing.
7 There the upright could argue with him, and I would escape for ever from my judge.
8 If I go east, he is not there; if west, I cannot make him out;
9 if north, where he works, I do not glimpse him; if he veers to the south, I do not see him.
10 But he knows the way I take; when he has tested me, I will come out like gold.
11 My foot has kept close to his steps; I have held to his way and not swerved.
12 From the command of his lips I have not departed; more than my portion of bread I have stored up the words of his mouth.
13 But he is one, and who can turn him? What his soul desires, he does.
14 For he will finish what he has set for me, and he has many such plans.
15 That is why I am dismayed before him; I think of it and I am afraid of him.
16 God has made my heart weak, and the Almighty has dismayed me,
17 for I have not been silenced by the darkness, nor by the thick gloom that covers my face.