Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped.

When they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, they raised their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky.

‘If I am wicked, woe to me!
And if I am righteous, I dare not lift up my head.
I am sated with disgrace and conscious of my misery.

“For there is hope for a tree,
When it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
And its shoots will not fail.

“He will drop off his unripe grape like the vine,
And will cast off his flower like the olive tree.

“O you who tear yourself in your anger—
For your sake is the earth to be abandoned,
Or the rock to be moved from its place?

“He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone;
And He has uprooted my hope like a tree.

“A mother will forget him;
The worm feeds sweetly till he is no longer remembered.
And wickedness will be broken like a tree.

“If my heart has been enticed by a woman,
Or I have lurked at my neighbor’s doorway,

“Do you know the time the mountain goats give birth?
Do you observe the calving of the deer?

“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?
Or press down his tongue with a cord?