His possessions also were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the children of the east.

It was so, when the days of their feasting had run their course, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, "It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts." Job did so continually.

Now it happened on the day when God's sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan also came among them.

Yahweh said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don't put forth your hand." So Satan went forth from the presence of Yahweh.

It fell on a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house,

While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, "Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house,

He said, "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh."

Again it happened on the day when the God's sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan came also among them to present himself before Yahweh.

So Satan went forth from the presence of Yahweh, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head.

Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came 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 to comfort him.

So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.

Let the stars of its twilight be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,

because it didn't shut up the doors of my mother's womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.

or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.

According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same.

so that he sets up on high those who are low, those who mourn are exalted to safety.

He frustrates the devices of the crafty, So that their hands can't perform their enterprise.

So the poor has hope, and injustice shuts her mouth.

Look this, we have searched it, so it is. Hear it, and know it for your good."

For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid.

Did I say, 'Give to me?' or, 'Offer a present for me from your substance?'

or, 'Deliver me from the adversary's hand?' or, 'Redeem me from the hand of the oppressors?'

so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me.

When I lie down, I say, 'When shall I arise, and the night be gone?' I toss and turn until the dawning of the day.

My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.

Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good.

The eye of him who sees me shall see me no more. Your eyes shall be on me, but I shall not be.

As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol shall come up no more.

Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me?

When I say, 'My bed shall comfort me. My couch shall ease my complaint;'

so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.

If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself?

So are the paths of all who forget God. The hope of the godless man shall perish,

Whose confidence shall break apart, Whose trust is a spider's web.

"Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God?

He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea.

Behold, he goes by me, and I don't see him. He passes on also, but I don't perceive him.

"It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked.

"Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away, they see no good,

If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and cheer up;'

then I would speak, and not fear him, for I am not so in myself.

Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees?

Are your days as the days of mortals, or your years as man's years,

For you say, 'My doctrine is pure. I am clean in your eyes.'

Its measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.

An empty-headed man becomes wise when a man is born as a wild donkey's colt.

Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you. The fish of the sea shall declare to you.

See now, I have set my cause in order. I know that I am righteous.

As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up,

so man lies down and doesn't rise. Until the heavens are no more, they shall not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.

The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man.

He shall not depart out of darkness. The flame shall dry up his branches. By the breath of God's mouth shall he go away.

I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul's place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,

where then is my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

He has walled up my way so that I can't pass, and has set darkness in my paths.

After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God,

Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger. "My heart is consumed within me.

If you say, 'How we will persecute him!' because the root of the matter is found in me,

yet he shall perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him shall say, 'Where is he?'

The eye which saw him shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more see him.

He shall suck cobra venom. The viper's tongue shall kill him.

You say, 'God lays up his iniquity for his children.' Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.

Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?'

So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?"

or darkness, so that you can not see, and floods of waters cover you.

"Isn't God in the heights of heaven? See the height of the stars, how high they are!

You say, 'What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness?

Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he doesn't see. He walks on the vault of the sky.'

The righteous see it, and are glad. The innocent ridicule them,

When they cast down, you shall say, 'be lifted up.' He will save the humble person.

There the upright might reason with him, so I should be delivered forever from my judge.

He works to the north, but I can't see him. He turns south, but I can't catch a glimpse of him.

"Why aren't times laid up by the Almighty? Why don't those who know him see his days?

They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow's ox for a pledge.

So that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves.

The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, 'No eye shall see me.' He disguises his face.

Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned.

If it isn't so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?"

He stirs up the sea with his power, and by his understanding he strikes through Rahab.

I hold fast to my righteousness, and will not let it go. My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.

He lies down rich, but he shall not do so again. He opens his eyes, and he is not.

That path no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon's eye seen it.

The deep says, 'It isn't in me.' The sea says, 'It isn't with me.'

Destruction and Death say, 'We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.'

then he saw it, and declared it. He established it, yes, and searched it out.

The young men saw me and hid themselves. The aged rose up and stood.

For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it commended me:

the blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.

So that they dwell in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

They mar my path, They set forward my calamity, without anyone's help.

Doesn't he see my ways, and number all my steps?

then let me sow, and let another eat. Yes, let the produce of my field be rooted out.

"If my heart has been enticed to a woman, and I have laid wait at my neighbor's door,

(no, from my youth he grew up with me as with a father, her have I guided from my mother's womb);

if his heart hasn't blessed me, if he hasn't been warmed with my sheep's fleece;

if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, because I saw my help in the gate,

because I feared the great multitude, and the contempt of families terrified me, so that I kept silence, and didn't go out of the door --

So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.

When Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, his wrath was kindled.