Whenever a round of banqueting was over, Job would send for his children and purify them, rising early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of them. For Job thought: Perhaps my children have sinned, having cursed God in their hearts. This was Job’s regular practice.

“Very well,” the Lord told Satan, “everything he owns is in your power. However, you must not lay a hand on Job himself.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence.

One day when Job’s sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,

He was still speaking when another messenger came and reported: “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house.

Suddenly a powerful wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on the young people so that they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

saying:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will leave this life.
The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.
Praise the name of Yahweh.

So Satan left the Lord’s presence and infected Job with terrible boils from the sole of his foot to the top of his head.

Now when Job’s three friends—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—heard about all this adversity that had happened to him, each of them came from his home. They met together to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

Then they sat on the ground with him seven days and nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very intense.

May its morning stars grow dark.
May it wait for daylight but have none;
may it not see the breaking of dawn.

For that night did not shut
the doors of my mother’s womb,
and hide sorrow from my eyes.

Or why was I not hidden like a miscarried child,
like infants who never see daylight?

I sigh when food is put before me,
and my groans pour out like water.

In my experience, those who plow injustice
and those who sow trouble reap the same.

The hungry consume his harvest,
even taking it out of the thorns.
The thirsty pant for his children’s wealth.

He frustrates the schemes of the crafty
so that they achieve no success.

He traps the wise in their craftiness
so that the plans of the deceptive
are quickly brought to an end.

So the poor have hope,
and injustice shuts its mouth.

See how happy the man is God corrects;
so do not reject the discipline of the Almighty.

Surely the arrows of the Almighty have pierced me;
my spirit drinks their poison.
God’s terrors are arrayed against me.

So this is what you have now become to me.
When you see something dreadful, you are afraid.

or “Deliver me from the enemy’s power”
or “Redeem me from the grasp of the ruthless”?

Do you think that you can disprove my words
or that a despairing man’s words are mere wind?

So I have been made to inherit months of futility,
and troubled nights have been assigned to me.

My days pass more swiftly than a weaver’s shuttle;
they come to an end without hope.

Remember that my life is but a breath.
My eye will never again see anything good.

The eye of anyone who looks on me
will no longer see me.
Your eyes will look for me, but I will be gone.

As a cloud fades away and vanishes,
so the one who goes down to Sheol will never rise again.

Am I the sea or a sea monster,
that You keep me under guard?

When I say: My bed will comfort me,
and my couch will ease my complaint,

so that I prefer strangling—
death rather than life in this body.

What is man, that You think so highly of him
and pay so much attention to him?

If I have sinned, what have I done to You,
Watcher of mankind?
Why have You made me Your target,
so that I have become a burden to You?

His source of confidence is fragile;
what he trusts in is a spider’s web.

If he is uprooted from his place,
it will deny knowing him, saying, “I never saw you.”

He shakes the earth from its place
so that its pillars tremble.

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

If He passes by me, I wouldn’t see Him;
if He goes right by, I wouldn’t recognize Him.

God does not hold back His anger;
Rahab’s assistants cringe in fear beneath Him!

It is all the same. Therefore I say,
“He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.”

Let Him take His rod away from me
so His terror will no longer frighten me.

I will say to God:
“Do not declare me guilty!
Let me know why You prosecute me.

Do You have eyes of flesh,
or do You see as a human sees?

Are my days not few? Stop it!
Leave me alone, so that I can smile a little

Should your babbling put others to silence,
so that you can keep on ridiculing
with no one to humiliate you?

Their measure is longer than the earth
and wider than the sea.

The tents of robbers are safe,
and those who provoke God are secure;
God’s power provides this.

Or speak to the earth, and it will instruct you;
let the fish of the sea inform you.

He deprives the world’s leaders of reason,
and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland.

Would you testify unjustly on God’s behalf
or speak deceitfully for Him?

Would God’s majesty not terrify you?
Would His dread not fall on you?

Can anyone indict me?
If so, I will be silent and die.

Only grant these two things to me, God,
so that I will not have to hide from Your presence:

Since man’s days are determined
and the number of his months depends on You,
and since You have set limits he cannot pass,

look away from him and let him rest
so that he can enjoy his day like a hired hand.

As water disappears from the sea
and a river becomes parched and dry,

so man lies down never to rise again.
They will not wake up until the heavens are no more;
they will not stir from their sleep.

When a man dies, will he come back to life?
If so, I would wait all the days of my struggle
until my relief comes.

as water wears away stones
and torrents wash away the soil from the land,
so You destroy a man’s hope.

Your iniquity teaches you what to say,
and you choose the language of the crafty.

Are God’s consolations not enough for you,
even the words that deal gently with you?

He will not escape from the darkness;
flames will wither his shoots,
and by the breath of God’s mouth, he will depart.

and say to corruption: You are my father,
and to the maggot: My mother or my sister,

where then is my hope?
Who can see any hope for me?

Parts of his skin are eaten away;
death’s firstborn consumes his limbs.

He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass through;
He has veiled my paths with darkness.

He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined.
He uproots my hope like a tree.

Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy,
for God’s hand has struck me.

Even after my skin has been destroyed,
yet I will see God in my flesh.

I will see Him myself;
my eyes will look at Him, and not as a stranger.
My heart longs within me.

If you say, “How will we pursue him,
since the root of the problem lies with him?”

then be afraid of the sword,
because wrath brings punishment by the sword,
so that you may know there is a judgment.

The eye that saw him will see him no more,
and his household will no longer see him.

He will suck the poison of cobras;
a viper’s fangs will kill him.

The possessions in his house will be removed,
flowing away on the day of God’s anger.

This is the wicked man’s lot from God,
the inheritance God ordained for him.

Yet they say to God: “Leave us alone!
We don’t want to know Your ways.

God reserves a person’s punishment for his children.
Let God repay the person himself, so that he may know it.

Let his own eyes see his demise;
let him drink from the Almighty’s wrath!

For you say, “Where now is the nobleman’s house?”
and “Where are the tents the wicked lived in?”

So how can you offer me such futile comfort?
Your answers are deceptive.

or darkness, so you cannot see,
and a flood of water covers you.

Yet you say: “What does God know?
Can He judge through thick darkness?

Clouds veil Him so that He cannot see,
as He walks on the circle of the sky.”

The righteous see this and rejoice;
the innocent mock them, saying,

When others are humiliated and you say, “Lift them up,”
God will save the humble.

If only I knew how to find Him,
so that I could go to His throne.

I would learn how He would answer me;
and understand what He would say to me.

When He is at work to the north, I cannot see Him;
when He turns south, I cannot find Him.

Why does the Almighty not reserve times for judgment?
Why do those who know Him never see His days?

They drive away the donkeys owned by the fatherless
and take the widow’s ox as collateral.

The adulterer’s eye watches for twilight,
thinking: No eye will see me;
he covers his face.

For the morning is like darkness to them.
Surely they are familiar with the terrors of darkness!

They float on the surface of the water.
Their section of the land is cursed,
so that they never go to their vineyards.

As dry ground and heat snatch away the melted snow,
so Sheol steals those who have sinned.

The womb forgets them;
worms feed on them;
they are remembered no more.
So injustice is broken like a tree.

He gives them a sense of security, so they can rely on it,
but His eyes watch over their ways.

By His power He stirred the sea,
and by His understanding He crushed Rahab.

I will teach you about God’s power.
I will not conceal what the Almighty has planned.

This is a wicked man’s lot from God,
the inheritance the ruthless receive from the Almighty.