Job 28

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¹Surely there is a mine for silver, a place where they refine gold.

²Iron is taken out of the earth; copper is smelted out of the stone.

³A man sets an end to darkness and searches out, to the farthest limit, the stones in obscurity and thick darkness.

⁴He breaks open a shaft away from where people live, places that are forgotten by anyone's foot. He hangs far away from people; he swings to and fro.

⁵As for the earth, out of which comes bread, it is turned up below as if by fire.

⁶Its stones are the place where sapphires are found, and its dust contains gold.

⁷No bird of prey knows the path to it, nor has the falcon's eye seen it.

⁸The proud animals have not walked such a path, nor has the fierce lion passed there.

⁹A man lays his hand on the flinty rock; he overturns mountains by their roots.

¹⁰He cuts out channels among the rocks; his eye sees every valuable thing there.

¹¹He ties up the streams so they do not run; what is hidden there he brings out to the light.

¹²Where will wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding?

¹³Man does not know its price; neither is it found in the land of the living.

¹⁴The deep waters under the earth say, 'It is not in me'; the sea says, 'It is not with me.'

¹⁵It cannot be gotten for gold; neither can silver be weighed as its price.

¹⁶It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with precious onyx or sapphire.

¹⁷Gold and crystal cannot equal it in worth; neither can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold.

¹⁸No mention is worth making of coral or jasper; indeed, the price of wisdom is more than rubies.

¹⁹The topaz of Cush does not equal it; neither can it be valued in terms of pure gold.

²⁰From where, then, comes wisdom? Where is the place of understanding?

²¹Wisdom is hidden from the eyes of all living things and is kept hidden from the birds of the heavens.

²²Destruction and Death say, 'We have heard just a rumor about it with our ears.'

²³God understands the way to it; he knows its place.

²⁴For he looks to the very ends of the earth and sees under all the heavens.

²⁵He made the force of the wind and parceled out the waters by measure.

²⁶He made a decree for the rain and a path for the thunder.

²⁷Then he saw wisdom and announced it; he established it, indeed, and he examined it.

²⁸To people he said, 'See, the fear of the Lord—that is wisdom; to depart from evil is understanding.'”