A look into trials and trouble and what is really taking place.  Job was restored to a higher position after suffering than before.

1. Job: a man of good character and wealth--God grants permission for Satan to test Job--Job's family and wealth taken

2. Job's health taken--Job's three fiends

3. Job expresses sorrow

4. Eliphaz tells Job that he must be guilty of something--the innocent don't suffer

5. Eliphaz continues, implying Job is foolish, tells Job to appeal to God, implies the Job is despising God's righteous judgment

6. Job expresses his deep anguish

7. Job expresses his feelings of futility

8. Bildad implies that Job must be in sin because God rewards the good

9. Job notes that no one can be in the right before God

10. Job expresses his lack of understanding of the oppressive suffering he is going through

11. Zophar scolds Job for not taking the counsel of his three friends and implies many accusations in his speech to Job

12. Job becomes sarcastic about the great "wisdom" of his friends--Job says that only God really knows and speaks of the power of God

13. Job pleads with God speak to him and tells his friends that he wishes they would stop talking--Job expresses his faith in God and his sure conviction that he will be restored

14. Job: death is final--man has only one life

15. Eliphaz attacks Job of assuming too much and condemning himself with his own mouth--Eliphaz boasts of his own wisdom based on experience (claiming the high moral ground)

16. Job lets his friends know that they are no comfort at all--Job tells how God has shriveled him up and declares his own innocence

17. Job realizes that God has made him a byword and he sees no hope

18. Bildad gives Job a sermon about the wicked and their punishment

19. Job responds to Bildad's unsubtle attacking insult in the form of a sermon--Job realizes, out loud, that everything is against him, yet, he knows that his Redeemer lives

20. Zophar continues the attack and insult: he says that Job has insulted him and implies that all Job's past success was simply the short-lived success of a wicked person

21. Job asserts that it is God's business to deal with the wicked

22. Eliphaz continues to accuse Job in generalities and wise-sounding words

23. Job longs for God knowing, at least in theory, that he is being refined as gold

24. Job notes that the wicked sometimes prosper

25. Bildad makes some general statements about the low estate of human beings

26. Job asks what help is Bildad--Job speaks about the greatness of God

27. Job again declares his righteousness--the hopeless state of the wicked, the godless

28. Job continues, speaking of the treasures of the earth and telling how man can't discover wisdom

29. Job reflects on his past and how good it was

30. Job then notes how he is humiliated in his trial

31. Job speaks of his integrity, how he has kept himself pure from sensual sins, from abusing power, from the sin of hating his enemies, from the sin of not caring about strangers--Job again pleads to be able to speak with God and defend himself to God

32. the young man, Elihu becomes angry that no wisdom has been spoken

33. Elihu implies that he is representing God and wants to debate with Job

34. Elihu places himself above them all--Elihu recites Job's complaints then tries to give the answer to all the problems, implying that Job has said things that Job never said

35. Elihu escalates his attack and accusation against Job

36. Elihu makes it plain that he thinks that God is disciplining Job, basically, "If you weren't sinning, you wouldn't be having this problem, because God is just."

37. Elihu continues, waxing eloquent about God's glory, majesty along with a fair amount of taunting and talking down to Job

38. God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind--God questions Job in regard to the creation--God questions Job in regard to created animals

39. more questions on animals for Job

40. Job can't answer--God answers Job out the storm and points out the difference between God and a man--God compares Job's power to that of behemoth

41. God compares Job's power to that of leviathan

42. Job confesses God's wisdom and knowledge are too wonderful for him--Job had heard of God before his trials, but now his eye sees God and he repents--God expresses His wrath against Job's three friends to Eliphaz and command--they are to go to Job, offer a burnt offering for themselves, and ask Job to intercede for them--Job intercedes and they are forgiven--Job's fortune is restored two-fold in every area of life