If thou canst answer me, set thy words in order before me, stand up.
Parallel translations
- WEB If you can, answer me. Set your words in order before me, and stand up.
- BSB Refute me if you can; prepare your case and confront me.
- NKJV If you can answer me, Set your words in order before me; Take your stand.
- NASB “Refute me if you can; Line up against me, take your stand.
- NLT Answer me, if you can; make your case and take your stand.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God repeats that they are stiff-necked and calls them to remove their jewelry while He decides what to do. Their response will reveal the state of their hearts.
Overview
God reaffirms the seriousness of their condition and turns their mourning into an act of obedient self-humbling. The removal of ornaments becomes a deliberate response to His word. The verse shows that true repentance involves yielding to God's verdict and casting ourselves on His mercy.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Job 33:32–33If thou hast anything to say, answer me: speak, for I desire to justify thee.
- Job 32:1So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.
- Job 23:4–5I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.
- Job 32:12Yea, I attended unto you, and, behold, there was none of you that convinced Job, or that answered his words:
- Job 13:18Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.
- Ps 50:21These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.
- Job 32:14Now he hath not directed his words against me: neither will I answer him with your speeches.
- Acts 10:26But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 33:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.