Note that Good News Translation has reduced verses 12 and 13 to a single three-line sentence.

He frustrates the devices of the crafty: the form of the Hebrew verb translated frustrates may be taken in the sense of “cause to break or crumble.” When used with plans, thoughts, or designs, it means to cause them to fail, turn out badly, ruin them. Good News Translation has “upsets the plans.” Devices refers to mental activities such as plans, schemes, intentions. Crafty describes people who use cunning to reach their objectives, and is used in Genesis 3.1 of the serpent, who “was more subtle than any other wild creature” (Revised Standard Version). Therefore “God ruins the plans thought up by cunning people” or “God causes the schemes of cunning people to fail.”

So that their hands achieve no success: this line is the consequence of the previous line. Hands refers to the persons themselves. The Hebrew word translated success denotes foresight to plan ahead, and so the meaning is “They did not accomplish what they had planned.” The reason is that God upset their plans.

Takes the wise in their own craftiness: see 1 Corinthians 3.19. Takes translates a Hebrew term which means to ensnare or catch in a trap. Other forms of the same verb are used in 36.8 as “caught in cords of affliction” (Revised Standard Version). See also 38.30, “is frozen”; 41.17 (41.9 in Hebrew), “they clasp each other.” The same picture is drawn in Psalm 7.16; Proverbs 26.27, where the wicked fall into their own pit. The wise refers not to people who have attained godly wisdom but rather to clever people who consider themselves wise. They are cunning, wily, crafty people. So “God catches crafty people in their own craftiness.”

The schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end: here another word of similar meaning to plots, plans is used. Wily translates a word derived from the same root used in Proverbs 8.8, where the reference is to twisted or crooked words. It is used in Psalm 18.26 with reference to people who are crooked in their conduct. Wily may be rendered, for example, “people who deceive others,” or idiomatically in some languages, “people with double tongues.” In the expression brought to a quick end, God is the implied agent of the action, which is to cut short, stop, bring to an end the plots of such people. So “God cuts short the plots hatched up by crooked people.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .