Job 9:14

“Shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”

Yahweh says, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build to me? Where will I rest?

Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can’t see him?” says Yahweh. “Don’t I fill heaven and earth?” says Yahweh.

Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Behold, to Yahweh your God belongs heaven, the heaven of heavens, and the earth, with all that is therein.

But who is able to build him a house, since heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain him? Who am I then, that I should build him a house, except just to burn incense before him?

I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.

Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?

Praise him, you heavens of heavens, you waters that are above the heavens.

Woe to him who strives with his Maker— a clay pot among the clay pots of the earth! Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ or your work, ‘He has no hands?’

However, the Most High doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says,

You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall return to dust.”

God who is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who has hardened himself against him and prospered?

“With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding.

See now, I have set my cause in order. I know that I am righteous.

Behold, I am toward God even as you are. I am also formed out of the clay.

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.

For he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, Neither has he hidden his face from him; but when he cried to him, he heard.

Don’t be afraid, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel. I will help you,” says Yahweh. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

Abraham answered, “See now, I have taken it on myself to speak to the Lord, although I am dust and ashes.

Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel, and the ground which you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Behold, he snatches away. Who can hinder him? Who will ask him, ‘What are you doing?’

“Surely I would speak to the Almighty. I desire to reason with God.

Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes. Your defenses are defenses of clay.

though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.

Behold, God is great, and we don’t know him. The number of his years is unsearchable.

We can’t reach the Almighty. He is exalted in power. In justice and great righteousness, he will not oppress.

then I will punish their sin with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.

For though Yahweh is high, yet he looks after the lowly; but he knows the proud from afar.

Great is our Lord, and mighty in power. His understanding is infinite.

God has made the earth by his power. He has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched out the heavens.

But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.

The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands.

But we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.

For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.

But one has somewhere testified, saying, “What is man, that you think of him? Or the son of man, that you care for him?

You said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which can’t be counted because there are so many.’ ”

I will set my tent among you, and my soul won’t abhor you.

But to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, you shall seek his habitation, and you shall come there.

David was afraid of Yahweh that day; and he said, “How could Yahweh’s ark come to me?”

I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.”

But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!

for I have not lived in a house since the day that I brought up Israel to this day, but have gone from tent to tent, and from one tent to another.

“But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house which I have built!

Now therefore don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you in this way. Don’t believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand?”

“Cyrus king of Persia says, ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Stand up and bless Yahweh your God from everlasting to everlasting! Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise!

You are Yahweh, even you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their army, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all. The army of heaven worships you.

How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!

If he is pleased to contend with him, he can’t answer him one time in a thousand.

Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me. Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse.

They are high as heaven. What can you do? They are deeper than Sheol. What can you know?

He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.

who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a stream,

I would set my cause in order before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.

There the upright might reason with him, so I should be delivered forever from my judge.

How much less man, who is a worm, the son of man, who is a worm!”

If you can, answer me. Set your words in order before me, and stand up.

Why do you strive against him, because he doesn’t give account of any of his matters?

But now, because he has not visited in his anger, neither does he greatly regard arrogance.

“Behold, God is mighty, and doesn’t despise anyone. He is mighty in strength of understanding.

what is man, that you think of him? What is the son of man, that you care for him?

Who can discern his errors? Forgive me from hidden errors.

For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me.

You have ascended on high. You have led away captives. You have received gifts among people, yes, among the rebellious also, that Yah God might dwell there.

To him who rides on the heaven of heavens, which are of old; behold, he utters his voice, a mighty voice.

Yahweh is high above all nations, his glory above the heavens.

until I find out a place for Yahweh, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”

“This is my resting place forever. I will live here, for I have desired it.

Put me in remembrance. Let us plead together. Declare your case, that you may be justified.

For the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, says: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Look down from heaven, and see from the habitation of your holiness and of your glory. Where are your zeal and your mighty acts? The yearning of your heart and your compassion is restrained toward me.

It is a rare thing that the king requires, and there is no other who can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

He who swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him who has been living in it.

The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”

For, “All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls;

See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him.

because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.

I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple.