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12:1  In responding to his friends’ collective accusation of his guilt, Job finally spoke.
12:2  Job (sarcastically to his friends): Surely, surely, my discerning friends, you are the ones! And when you pass away, the sum total of all wisdom will perish from the earth.
12:3  I have a mind as good as yours. Don’t think I am so far beneath you! After all, who doesn’t know all about these things? Who isn’t acquainted with the pedestrian platitudes you’ve trotted out?
12:4  As for me—the one who called upon God and whom God answered— now, I am pitiful, laughable, a just and upright joke.
12:5  Those who have it easy may easily scorn the unfortunate; they have their contempt already prepared for those whose feet slip.
12:6  Ironically, there is peace inside the tents of the raiders, and those who upset God seem to live safe and secure; They carry their gods around in their hands.
12:7  However, call on the animals to teach you; the birds that sail through the air are not afraid to tell you the truth.
12:8  Engage the earth in conversation; it’s happy to share what it knows. Even the fish of the sea are wise enough to explain it to you.
12:9  In fact, which part of creation isn’t aware, which doesn’t know the Eternal’s hand has done this?
12:10  His hand cradles the life of every creature on the face of the earth; His breath fills the nostrils of humans everywhere.
12:11  Listen! Aren’t we made to be discriminating: our ears testing wisdom, our mouths tasting food?
12:12  But you tell me, “With age comes wisdom, and a long life grants understanding.”
12:13  With God is the sum total of all wisdom and of all power; His is the greatest of plans and the deepest of comprehensions.
12:14  So, then, what God tears down cannot be built back up; the man He shuts up cannot be released.
12:15  If God withholds the rains and stops the streams from flowing, the earth suffers drought; if He unleashes too much, the lands are ravaged by flood.
12:16  He is strong, and sound wisdom belongs to Him: whether one deceives or is deceived, he is under God’s control.
12:17  He leads the counselors off as captives, barefoot and stripped; He makes a mockery of judges.
12:18  He strips off the royal sashes of kings and ties them at the waist, making them slaves as well.
12:19  He leads the priests away barefoot and defeats the long-incumbent men of power.
12:20  He robs trusted advisors of speech; He steals discretion from elders.
12:21  He heaps contempt on rulers, and loosens the bind of alliances among world powers.
12:22  Aspects of His deep wisdom that were hidden away, He shows in plain sight; darkness is brought into the light.
12:23  He builds the strength of nations, only to crush them— increases their population across the earth, only to scatter them again.
12:24  He divests each nation’s leaders of understanding, and causes them to wander aimlessly with nowhere to go,
12:25  Until finally they grope in the dark, the light having departed, and He lets them stumble and stagger like drunks.