Today's reading is rather confusing, so I am going to go through it section by section.
First, Job declares his belief that if he could argue his case before God, he would be found innocent. But despite that, God will do what he will do; he controls Job's destiny, both the good and the bad.
Next, Job asks why God does not punish the wicked or respond to the cries of the needly and poor. This is accompanied by many images of how the poor suffer at the hands of the wicked.
Next Job seems to present something of a reversal to his earlier position and declares that the wicked are punished. However, he seems to be arguing that that punishment is death rather than some earthly punishment.
This is followed by a super short response from Bildad. Bildad seems to just interject with a statement of how God is awesome and humans suck. It seems to add nothing to the text. Job then responds (with what I can only read as biting sarcasm). He seems to reinforce the theme of God's power and majesty brought up by Bildad. However, his disagrees with Bildad in so far as Bildad seems to think that he can draw conclusions from the vastness of God's majesty (humans are maggots) while Job concludes that God's majesty is so great and incomprehensible that there are no conclusions that can be drawn from it.
Job then claims that he will never declare his companions to be right. This seems to be an extreme position. I think that both sides in this argument could learn a lot from each other if they were willing. He then goes on to make points that seem oddly similar to points made by those that he is disagreeing with. Very odd.
New Testament
Paul discusses why he changed his plans about a second visit to Corinth. He seems to want to emphasize that he does not waver in his word without good reason. In the midst of all this, he manages to make a point about how Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God's promises.
Paul then alludes to some sort of recent trouble in the Corinthian church. As mentioned in yesterday's introductory material, some scholars believe that the situation being referred to is what prompted the separate letter that is hypothesized to make up the later part of 2 Corinthians.
Whether or not that is the exact incident referred to, Paul here almost seems to be apologizing for the harsh words that he had for the Corinthian church. He wants them to know that the depth of his grief came from the depth of his love for them. Now that the trouble is over, he wants them to practice forgiveness.
Psalms and Proverbs
Nothing to say today.
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