His sons used to take turns having banquets at their homes. They would send an invitation to their three sisters to eat and drink with them.

the Sabeans swooped down and took them away. They struck down the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

That messenger was still speaking when yet another came and reported: “The Chaldeans formed three bands, made a raid on the camels, and took them away. They struck down the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

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!”

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.

When they looked from a distance, they could barely recognize him. They wept aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust into the air and on his head.

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 the day I was born perish,
and the night when they said,
“A boy is conceived.”

The captives are completely at ease;
they do not hear the voice of their oppressor.

who are filled with much joy
and are glad when they reach the grave?

They perish at a single blast from God
and come to an end by the breath of His nostrils.

They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk;
they perish forever while no one notices.

Are their tent cords not pulled up?
They die without wisdom.

>

His children are far from safety.
They are crushed at the city gate,
with no one to rescue them.

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

They encounter darkness by day,
and they grope at noon
as if it were night.

I refuse to touch them;
they are like contaminated food.

The wadis evaporate in warm weather;
they disappear from their channels in hot weather.

They are ashamed because they had been confident of finding water.
When they arrive there, they are frustrated.

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

Will they not teach you and tell you
and speak from their understanding?

While still uncut shoots,
they would dry up quicker than any other plant.

My days fly by faster than a runner;
they flee without seeing any good.

They sweep by like boats made of papyrus,
like an eagle swooping down on its prey.

They are higher than the heavens—what can you do?
They are deeper than Sheol—what can you know?

But ask the animals, and they will instruct you;
ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.

When He withholds the waters, everything dries up,
and when He releases them, they destroy the land.

They grope around in darkness without light;
He makes them stagger like drunken men.

>

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.

If his sons receive honor, he does not know it;
if they become insignificant, he is unaware of it.

They conceive trouble and give birth to evil;
their womb prepares deception.

They open their mouths against me
and strike my cheeks with contempt;
they join themselves together against me.

They turned night into day
and made light seem near in the face of darkness.

His troops advance together;
they construct a ramp against me
and camp around my tent.

Even young boys scorn me.
When I stand up, they mock me.

I wish that my words were written down,
that they were recorded on a scroll

Their children are established while they are still alive,
and their descendants, before their eyes.

They let their little ones run around like lambs;
their children skip about,

They spend their days in prosperity
and go down to Sheol in peace.

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

Are they like straw before the wind,
like chaff a storm sweeps away?

But they both lie in the dust,
and worms cover them.

Isn’t God as high as the heavens?
And look at the highest stars—how lofty they are!

They were snatched away before their time,
and their foundations were washed away by a river.

They were the ones who said to God, “Leave us alone!”
and “What can the Almighty do to us?”

“Surely our opponents are destroyed,
and fire has consumed what they left behind.”

The wicked displace boundary markers.
They steal a flock and provide pasture for it.

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

They push the needy off the road;
the poor of the land are forced into hiding.

They gather their fodder in the field
and glean the vineyards of the wicked.

Without clothing, they spend the night naked,
having no covering against the cold.

Drenched by mountain rains,
they huddle against the rocks, shelterless.

Without clothing, they wander about naked.
They carry sheaves but go hungry.

They crush olives in their presses;
they tread the winepresses, but go thirsty.

The wicked are those who rebel against the light.
They do not recognize its ways
or stay on its paths.

In the dark they break into houses;
by day they lock themselves in,
never experiencing the light.

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.

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

They prey on the childless woman who is unable to conceive,
and do not deal kindly with the widow.

Yet God drags away the mighty by His power;
when He rises up, they have no assurance of life.

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

They are exalted for a moment, then they are gone;
they are brought low and shrivel up like everything else.
They wither like heads of grain.

Even if his children increase, they are destined for the sword;
his descendants will never have enough food.

When they heard me, they blessed me,
and when they saw me, they spoke well of me.

After a word from me they did not speak again;
my speech settled on them like dew.

They waited for me as for the rain
and opened their mouths as for spring showers.

If I smiled at them, they couldn’t believe it;
they were thrilled at the light of my countenance.

But now they mock me,
men younger than I am,
whose fathers I would have refused to put
with my sheep dogs.

Emaciated from poverty and hunger,
they gnawed the dry land,
the desolate wasteland by night.

They plucked mallow among the shrubs,
and the roots of the broom tree were their food.

They were expelled from human society;
people shouted at them as if they were thieves.

They are living on the slopes of the wadis,
among the rocks and in holes in the ground.

They bray among the shrubs;
they huddle beneath the thistles.

Foolish men, without even a name.
They were forced to leave the land.

They despise me and keep their distance from me;
they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

Because God has loosened my bowstring and oppressed me,
they have cast off restraint in my presence.

The rabble rise up at my right;
they trap my feet
and construct their siege ramp against me.

They tear up my path;
they contribute to my destruction,
without anyone to help them.

They advance as through a gaping breach;
they keep rolling in through the ruins.

Terrors are turned loose against me;
they chase my dignity away like the wind,
and my prosperity has passed by like a cloud.

If I have dismissed the case of my male or female servants
when they made a complaint against me,

He was also angry at Job’s three friends because they had failed to refute him and yet had condemned him.

Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because they were all older than he.

Should I continue to wait now that they are silent,
now that they stand there and no longer answer?

My words come from my upright heart,
and my lips speak with sincerity what they know.

In a dream, a vision in the night,
when deep sleep falls on people
as they slumber on their beds,

God is not partial to princes
and does not favor the rich over the poor,
for they are all the work of His hands.

They die suddenly in the middle of the night;
people shudder, then pass away.
Even the mighty are removed without effort.

Therefore, He recognizes their deeds
and overthrows them by night, and they are crushed.

because they turned aside from following Him
and did not understand any of His ways

People cry out because of severe oppression;
they shout for help because of the arm of the mighty.

There they cry out, but He does not answer,
because of the pride of evil men.

He does not remove His gaze from the righteous,
but He seats them forever with enthroned kings,
and they are exalted.

God tells them what they have done
and how arrogantly they have transgressed.

He opens their ears to correction
and insists they repent from iniquity.

If they serve Him obediently,
they will end their days in prosperity
and their years in happiness.

But if they do not obey,
they will cross the river of death
and die without knowledge.

Those who have a godless heart harbor anger;
even when God binds them, they do not cry for help.

They die in their youth;
their life ends among male cult prostitutes.