Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three bands and made a raid on the camels and took them and slew the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, they came each one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him.

Dread came upon me, and trembling,
And made all my bones shake.

“By day they meet with darkness,
And grope at noon as in the night.

“Oh that my request might come to pass,
And that God would grant my longing!

‘Your hands fashioned and made me altogether,
And would You destroy me?

‘Remember now, that You have made me as clay;
And would You turn me into dust again?

“But would that God might speak,
And open His lips against you,

“With Him are wisdom and might;
To Him belong counsel and understanding.

“For he has covered his face with his fat
And made his thighs heavy with flesh.

“O that a man might plead with God
As a man with his neighbor!

“But He has made me a byword of the people,
And I am one at whom men spit.

“Oh that I knew where I might find Him,
That I might come to His seat!

“It is God who has made my heart faint,
And the Almighty who has dismayed me,

“They push the needy aside from the road;
The poor of the land are made to hide themselves altogether.

“He has built his house like the spider’s web,
Or as a hut which the watchman has made.

“The blessing of the one ready to perish came upon me,
And I made the widow’s heart sing for joy.

“You have become cruel to me;
With the might of Your hand You persecute me.

“I have made a covenant with my eyes;
How then could I gaze at a virgin?

“Did not He who made me in the womb make him,
And the same one fashion us in the womb?

“Have the men of my tent not said,
‘Who can find one who has not been satisfied with his meat’?

“The Spirit of God has made me,
And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

So that they caused the cry of the poor to come to Him,
And that He might hear the cry of the afflicted—

“From the breath of God ice is made,
And the expanse of the waters is frozen.

When I made a cloud its garment
And thick darkness its swaddling band,

That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
And the wicked be shaken out of it?

Because God has made her forget wisdom,
And has not given her a share of understanding.

“Do you give the horse his might?
Do you clothe his neck with a mane?

“He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength;
He goes out to meet the weapons.

“Behold now, Behemoth, which I made as well as you;
He eats grass like an ox.

“Nothing on earth is like him,
One made without fear.