English / ERV
Job 28
Easy-to-Read Version, 2006
- 1“There are mines where people get silver and places where people melt gold to make it pure.
- 2Iron is dug out of the ground, and copper is melted out of the rocks.
- 3Miners carry lights deep into caves to search for these rocks in the deepest darkness.
- 4Far from where people live, they dig deep into the ground, down where no one else has been before. There they work all alone, hanging from ropes.
- 5Food grows on the ground above. But underground it is different, as if everything were melted by fire.
- 6In the rocks there are sapphires and grains of pure gold.
- 7Wild birds know nothing about the way to these places. No falcon[1] has ever seen it.
- 8Wild animals have never been there. Lions have not traveled that way.
- 9Miners dig the hardest rocks. They dig away at the mountains and make them bare.
- 10They cut tunnels through the rocks and see all the treasures they hold.
- 11They even find places where rivers begin. They bring to light what once was hidden.
- 12“But where can anyone find wisdom? Where can we get understanding?
- 13People don’t know where wisdom is. It cannot be found by anyone on earth.
- 14The deep ocean says, ‘It’s not here with me.’ The sea says, ‘It’s not here with me.’
- 15You cannot buy wisdom with even the purest gold. There’s not enough silver in the world to pay for it.