New English Translation

Job 28:1-6

1 1“Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined.

2Iron is taken from the ground, and rock is poured out as copper.

3Man puts an end to the darkness; he searches the farthest recesses for the ore in the deepest darkness.

4Far from where people live he sinks a shaft, in places travelers have long forgotten, far from other people he dangles and sways.

5The earth, from which food comes, is overturned below as though by fire;

6a place whose stones are sapphires and which contains dust of gold;

Notes

1. Job 28:1 As the book is now arranged, this chapter forms an additional speech by Job, although some argue that it comes from the writer of the book. The mood of the chapter is not despair, but wisdom; it anticipates the divine speeches in the end of the book. This poem, like many psalms in the Bible, has a refrain (vv. 12 and 20). These refrains outline the chapter, giving three sections: there is no known road to wisdom (1-11); no price can buy it (12-19); and only God has it, and only by revelation can man posses it (20-28). ↩