The oldest book in the Bible, and still the strangest. Job is blameless, and God lets the accuser strip everything from him to prove it. Chapters 1–2 are spare prose. Then Job opens his mouth and curses the day he was born, and the book becomes sustained dramatic poetry for the next 37 chapters: three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar) argue that he must have sinned; Job argues back that God has wronged him and he will say so to his face. Then Elihu, a young man who has been waiting, speaks at length. Then God speaks from the whirlwind — not answering any of the questions, but asking 70 of his own: where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Job says: I had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. God restores him twice over. The book ends quietly in prose.