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Saturday, July 12th, 2025
the Week of Proper 9 / Ordinary 14
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Read the Bible

Good News Translation

Job 11:4

You claim that what you say is true; you claim you are pure in the sight of God.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Self-Righteousness;   Uncharitableness;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Zophar;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Greatness of God;   Hypocrisy;   Holman Bible Dictionary - God;   Job, the Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Doctrine;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Clean;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Doctrine;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
You have said, “My teaching is sound,and I am pure in your sight.”
Hebrew Names Version
For you say, 'My doctrine is pure, I am clean in your eyes.'
King James Version
For thou hast said, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in thine eyes.
English Standard Version
For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God's eyes.'
New Century Version
You say, ‘My teachings are right, and I am clean in God's sight.'
New English Translation
For you have said, ‘My teaching is flawless, and I am pure in your sight.'
Amplified Bible
"For you have said, 'My teaching (doctrine) [that God knowingly afflicts the righteous] is pure, And I am innocent in your eyes.'
New American Standard Bible
"For you have said, 'My teaching is pure, And I am innocent in your eyes.'
World English Bible
For you say, 'My doctrine is pure, I am clean in your eyes.'
Geneva Bible (1587)
For thou hast sayde, My doctrine is pure, and I am cleane in thine eyes.
Legacy Standard Bible
You have said, ‘My learning is pure,And I am innocent in your eyes.'
Berean Standard Bible
You have said, 'My doctrine is sound, and I am pure in Your sight.'
Contemporary English Version
You claim to be innocent and argue that your beliefs are acceptable to God.
Complete Jewish Bible
"You claim that your teaching is pure; you tell [God], ‘I am clean in your sight.'
Darby Translation
For thou sayest, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in thine eyes.
Easy-to-Read Version
You say to God, ‘My arguments are right, and you can see I am pure.'
George Lamsa Translation
For you say, I was led righteously, and I am pure in my sight.
Lexham English Bible
For you say, ‘My teaching is pure, and I am clean in your sight.'
Literal Translation
For you have said, My doctrine is pure; and, I am clean in Your eyes.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Wilt thou saye vnto God: The thinge that I take in honde, is perfecte, & I am clene in thy sight?
American Standard Version
For thou sayest, My doctrine is pure, And I am clean in thine eyes.
Bible in Basic English
You may say, My way is clean, and I am free from sin in your eyes.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
And thou hast said: 'My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in Thine eyes.'
King James Version (1611)
For thou hast said, My doctrine is pure, and I am cleane in thine eyes.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
For thou hast sayde, my doctrine is pure, and I am cleane in thyne eyes.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
For say not, I am pure in my works, and blameless before him.
English Revised Version
For thou sayest, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in thine eyes.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
For thou seidist, My word is cleene, and Y am cleene in thi siyt.
Update Bible Version
For you say, My doctrine is pure, And I am clean in your eyes.
Webster's Bible Translation
For thou hast said, My doctrine [is] pure, and I am clean in thy eyes.
New King James Version
For you have said, "My doctrine is pure, And I am clean in your eyes.'
New Living Translation
You claim, ‘My beliefs are pure,' and ‘I am clean in the sight of God.'
New Life Bible
For you say, ‘What I believe is pure. I am without fault in Your eyes.'
New Revised Standard
For you say, ‘My conduct is pure, and I am clean in God's sight.'
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Since thou hast said, Right is my doctrine, and pure am I in his eyes.
Douay-Rheims Bible
For thou hast said: My word is pure, and I am clean in thy sight.
Revised Standard Version
For you say, 'My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God's eyes.'
Young's Literal Translation
And thou sayest, `Pure [is] my discourse, And clean I have been in Thine eyes.'
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"For you have said, 'My teaching is pure, And I am innocent in your eyes.'

Contextual Overview

1Will no one answer all this nonsense? Does talking so much put you in the right? < 3 Job, do you think we can't answer you? That your mocking words will leave us speechless? 4 You claim that what you say is true; you claim you are pure in the sight of God. 5 How I wish God would answer you! 6 He would tell you there are many sides to wisdom; there are things too deep for human knowledge. God is punishing you less than you deserve.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

For thou: Job 6:10, Job 10:7, 1 Peter 3:15

I am clean: Job 6:29, Job 6:30, Job 7:20, Job 9:2, Job 9:3, Job 14:4, Job 34:5, Job 34:6, Job 35:2

Reciprocal: Exodus 38:21 - tabernacle of testimony Job 9:14 - shall I Job 33:9 - clean

Cross-References

Genesis 6:4
In those days, and even later, there were giants on the earth who were descendants of human women and the heavenly beings. They were the great heroes and famous men of long ago.
Genesis 11:8
So the Lord scattered them all over the earth, and they stopped building the city.
Genesis 11:9
The city was called Babylon, because there the Lord mixed up the language of all the people, and from there he scattered them all over the earth.
Genesis 11:11
After that, he lived another 500 years and had other children.
Genesis 11:13
after that, he lived another 403 years and had other children.
Deuteronomy 1:28
Why should we go there? We are afraid. The men we sent tell us that the people there are stronger and taller than we are, and that they live in cities with walls that reach the sky. They saw giants there!'
Deuteronomy 4:27
The Lord will scatter you among other nations, where only a few of you will survive.
Deuteronomy 9:1
"Listen, people of Israel! Today you are about to cross the Jordan River and occupy the land belonging to nations greater and more powerful than you. Their cities are large, with walls that reach the sky.
2 Samuel 8:13
David became even more famous when he returned from killing eighteen thousand Edomites in Salt Valley.
Psalms 92:9
We know that your enemies will die, and all the wicked will be defeated.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For thou hast said,.... What follows is produced to support the charge, especially of lying, which seems to be founded on what he had said in Job 6:10;

my doctrine [is] pure; free from error, unadulterated, unmixed, not blended with Heathenish principles and human doctrines; but tending to purity of heart and life, as every word of God, and doctrine that comes from him, is pure, yea, very pure, like silver purified seven times; and such was Job's doctrine which he "received" from God, "took" y up and professed, taught and delivered to others, so far as was agreeable to the will of God, and the revelation he had then made: and it appears that Job had very clear and sublime notions of God, of his being and perfections, of his works of nature, providence, and grace; of Christ his living Redeemer, of redemption and justification by him, and of the resurrection of the dead; and had purer and better notions of divine things than his friends had, and spoke better things of God than they did, God himself being witness, Job 42:7; some interpret this of the purity of his life and conversation: he is further charged with saying:

and I am clean in thine eyes: speaking to God, as Jarchi observes; and indeed so he was, and every believer is, in an evangelic sense; as to the new man, which is created in righteousness and true holiness, is without sin, and cannot commit it; and as washed from all sin in the blood of Christ, and as clothed with his righteousness, in which the saints are faultless before the throne, and are unblamable and irreprovable in the sight of God: but Zophar's meaning is, that Job had asserted that he was entirely free from sin in himself, was wholly without it, and did not commit any; and had appealed to God, as knowing it to be true; and which he seems to have grounded on what he had said,

Job 10:7; through a mistake of his sense; which was not that he was free from sin entirely, but from any gross notorious sin, or from a wicked course of living, and particularly from the sin of hypocrisy, his friends suggested he was guilty of; otherwise he confesses himself a sinner, and prays for the pardon of his sins, and disclaims perfection in himself; see Job 7:20; and indeed there is no creature in itself clean in the sight of God, either angels or men; every man is naturally unclean; no good man is without sin, without the being, indwelling, and commission of it; nor will any truly gracious man say he is; he knows otherwise, and acknowledges it; he that says he is must be an ignorant man, or a vain and pharisaical man; yea, must not say the truth: some have suspected the first part of the words to be Job's, "and I am clean": and the other Zophar's explaining them; that is, "in thine eyes" z; in his own apprehension, as if he had a high and conceited opinion of himself.

y לקחי "doctrina aut oratio mea et sententia mente accepta", Michaelis; so Cocceius; "id quid ab aliis acceptum", Drusius. z Vid. Schultens in loc.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

My doctrine is pure - The Septuagint instead of the word “doctrine” here reads “deeds,” ἔργοις ergois; the Syriac, “thou sayest I have acted justly.” But the word used here (לקח leqach) means properly “fair speech” or “taking arguments,” that by which one is “taken” or captivated, from לקח lâqach, “to take.” Then it means doctrine, or instruction, Proverbs 1:5; Proverbs 9:9. Here it means the views which Job had expressed. Dr. Good supposes that it means “conduct,” a word which would suit the connection, but the Hebrew is not used in this sense.

And I am clean in thine eyes - In the eyes of God, or in his sight. This was a false charge. Job had never maintained that he was perfect (compare the notes at Job 9:20); he had only maintained that he was not such a sinner as his friends maintained that he was, a hypocrite, and a man eminent for guilt. His lack of absolute perfection he was ever ready to admit and mourn over.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 11:4. My doctrine is pure] לקחי likchi, "my assumptions." What I assume or take as right, and just, and true, are so; the precepts which I have formed, and the practice which I have founded on them, are all correct and perfect. Job had not exactly said, My doctrine and way of life are pure, and I am clean in thine eyes; but he had vindicated himself from their charges of secret sins and hypocrisy, and appealed to God for his general uprightness and sincerity: but Zophar here begs the question, in order that he may have something to say, and room to give vent to his invective.


 
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