Today is the 27th day of August. Welcome to the daily audio Bible. I am Brian and it is wonderful.

Wonderful to be here with you today as we greet a brand new week. Right out there. We're stepping into it. It's fresh. It hasn't happened yet.

Let's do all that we can to make it awesome as we reveal the love of God in this world through our lives.

One of the things that informs what that even looks like is our daily time to gather here as a community around the global campfire together,

allowing the scriptures to speak into our lives and allowing the Holy Spirit to move in and out among our community in each of our stories,

revealing our next steps. And so welcome to a brand new week. We will obviously pick up where we left off. And that has us heading back into the book of Job.

This week we'll read from the God's word translation. And today, Job chapters 23 through 27.

Then Job replied to his friends. My complaint is bitter again today. I try hard to control my sighing.

If only I knew where I could find God, I would go where he lives. I would present my case to him. I would have a mouthful of arguments.

I want to know the words he would use to answer me. I want to understand the things he would say to me.

Would he sue me and hide behind great legal maneuvers? Now, he certainly would press charges against me. Then decent people could argue with him. And I would escape my judgment forever.

However, if I go east, he isn't there. If I go west, I can't find him. If I go northward, where he is at work, I can't observe him. If I turn southward, I can't see him.

I can't find him because he knows the road I'd take. When he tests me, I'll come out as pure as gold.

I have followed his footsteps closely. I have stayed on his path and did not turn from it. I have not left his commands behind. I have treasured his words in my heart.

But God is one of a kind who can make him change his mind. He does whatever he wants. He will carry out his orders concerning me as he does with so many other things.

That is why I'm terrified of him. When I think of it, I'm afraid of him. God has discouraged me. The Almighty has filled me with terror. But I am not silenced by the darkness that covers my face.

Why doesn't the Almighty set aside times for punishment? Why don't those who are close to him see his days of judgment?

People move boundary markers. They steal flocks and tend them as shepherds. They drive away the orphans donkey. They take the widow's ox as security for a loan. They force needy people off the road.

All the people of the country go into hiding. Like wild donkeys in the desert, poor people go out to do their work looking for food.

The planes provide food for their children. They harvest animal food in the field to feed themselves. They pick the leftover grapes in the wicked persons vineyard.

All night they lie naked without a covering from the cold. They are drenched by the rainstorms in the mountains. They hug the rocks because they can't find shelter.

People snatch the nursing orphan from a breast and take a poor woman's baby as security for a loan. That is why the poor go around naked.

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