Now his sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one in turn, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.

and the Sabeans swooped down and carried them all away, and they killed the servants with the sword! And I -- only I alone -- escaped to tell you!"

While this one was still speaking another messenger arrived and said, "The Chaldeans formed three bands and made a raid on the camels and carried them all away, and they killed the servants with the sword! And I -- only I alone -- escaped to tell you!"

and suddenly a great wind swept across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they died! And I -- only I alone -- escaped to tell you!"

When Job's three friends heard about all this calamity that had happened to him, each of them came from his own country -- Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to come to show sympathy for him and to console him.

But when they gazed intently from a distance but did not recognize him, they began to weep loudly. Each of them tore his robes, and they threw dust into the air over their heads.

Then they sat down with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, yet no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.

There the prisoners relax together; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.

who rejoice even to jubilation, and are exultant when they find the grave?

By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.

They are destroyed between morning and evening; they perish forever without anyone regarding it.

Is not their excess wealth taken away from them? They die, yet without attaining wisdom.

His children are far from safety, and they are crushed at the place where judgment is rendered, nor is there anyone to deliver them.

He frustrates the plans of the crafty so that their hands cannot accomplish what they had planned!

They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope about in the noontime as if it were night.

I have refused to touch such things; they are like loathsome food to me.

They are dark because of ice; snow is piled up over them.

When they are scorched, they dry up, when it is hot, they vanish from their place.

Caravans turn aside from their routes; they go into the wasteland and perish.

They were distressed, because each one had been so confident; they arrived there, but were disappointed.

My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and they come to an end without hope.

Will they not instruct you and speak to you, and bring forth words from their understanding?

While they are still beginning to flower and not ripe for cutting, they can wither away faster than any grass!

"My days are swifter than a runner, they speed by without seeing happiness.

They glide by like reed boats, like an eagle that swoops down on its prey.

"But now, ask the animals and they will teach you, or the birds of the sky and they will tell you.

If he holds back the waters, then they dry up; if he releases them, they destroy the land.

They grope about in darkness without light; he makes them stagger like drunkards.

"Man, born of woman, lives but a few days, and they are full of trouble.

so man lies down and does not rise; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake nor arise from their sleep.

If his sons are honored, he does not know it; if they are brought low, he does not see it.

Distress and anguish terrify him; they prevail against him like a king ready to launch an attack,

he lived in ruined towns and in houses where no one lives, where they are ready to crumble into heaps.

They conceive trouble and bring forth evil; their belly prepares deception."

People have opened their mouths against me, they have struck my cheek in scorn; they unite together against me.

He has made me a byword to people, I am the one in whose face they spit.

These men change night into day; they say, 'The light is near in the face of darkness.'

His troops advance together; they throw up a siege ramp against me, and they camp around my tent.

Even youngsters have scorned me; when I get up, they scoff at me.

"O that my words were written down, O that they were written on a scroll,

that with an iron chisel and with lead they were engraved in a rock forever!

They allow their children to run like a flock; their little ones dance about.

They sing to the accompaniment of tambourine and harp, and make merry to the sound of the flute.

They live out their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.

So they say to God, 'Turn away from us! We do not want to know your ways.

How often are they like straw before the wind, and like chaff swept away by a whirlwind?

Together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover over them both.

"Is not God on high in heaven? And see the lofty stars, how high they are!

They were saying to God, 'Turn away from us,' and 'What can the Almighty do to us?'

Men move boundary stones; they seize the flock and pasture them.

They drive away the orphan's donkey; they take the widow's ox as a pledge.

They turn the needy from the pathway, and the poor of the land hide themselves together.

Like wild donkeys in the desert they go out to their labor, seeking diligently for food; the wasteland provides food for them and for their children.

They reap fodder in the field, and glean in the vineyard of the wicked.

They spend the night naked because they lack clothing; they have no covering against the cold.

They are soaked by mountain rains and huddle in the rocks because they lack shelter.

They go about naked, without clothing, and go hungry while they carry the sheaves.

They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees; they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty.

There are those who rebel against the light; they do not know its ways and they do not stay on its paths.

In the dark the robber breaks into houses, but by day they shut themselves in; they do not know the light.

For all of them, the morning is to them like deep darkness; they are friends with the terrors of darkness.

They are exalted for a little while, and then they are gone, they are brought low like all others, and gathered in, and like a head of grain they are cut off.'

"People listened to me and waited silently; they kept silent for my advice.

After I had spoken, they did not respond; my words fell on them drop by drop.

They waited for me as people wait for the rain, and they opened their mouths as for the spring rains.

If I smiled at them, they hardly believed it; and they did not cause the light of my face to darken.

"But now they mock me, those who are younger than I, whose fathers I disdained too much to put with my sheep dogs.

gaunt with want and hunger, they would gnaw the parched land, in former time desolate and waste.

By the brush they would gather herbs from the salt marshes, and the root of the broom tree was their food.

They were banished from the community -- people shouted at them like they would shout at thieves --

so that they had to live in the dry stream beds, in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.

They brayed like animals among the bushes and were huddled together under the nettles.

Sons of senseless and nameless people, they were driven out of the land with whips.

They detest me and maintain their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

On my right the young rabble rise up; they drive me from place to place, and build up siege ramps against me.

They destroy my path; they succeed in destroying me without anyone assisting them.

They come in as through a wide breach; amid the crash they come rolling in.

Terrors are turned loose on me; they drive away my honor like the wind, and like a cloud my deliverance has passed away.

"If I have disregarded the right of my male servants or my female servants when they disputed with me,

If I have refused to give the poor what they desired, or caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

With Job's three friends he was also angry, because they could not find an answer, and so declared Job guilty.

"They are dismayed and cannot answer any more; they have nothing left to say.

And I have waited. But because they do not speak, because they stand there and answer no more,

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

In a moment they die, in the middle of the night, people are shaken and they pass away. The mighty are removed effortlessly.

Therefore, he knows their deeds, he overthrows them in the night and they are crushed.

because they have turned away from following him, and have not understood any of his ways,

so that they caused the cry of the poor to come before him, so that he hears the cry of the needy.

"People cry out because of the excess of oppression; they cry out for help because of the power of the mighty.

Then they cry out -- but he does not answer -- because of the arrogance of the wicked.

But if they are bound in chains, and held captive by the cords of affliction,

then he reveals to them what they have done, and their transgressions, that they were behaving proudly.

And he reveals this for correction, and says that they must turn from evil.

If they obey and serve him, they live out their days in prosperity and their years in pleasantness.

But if they refuse to listen, they pass over the river of death, and expire without knowledge.

The godless at heart nourish anger, they do not cry out even when he binds them.

They die in their youth, and their life ends among the male cultic prostitutes.

He draws up drops of water; they distill the rain into its mist,

The wild animals go to their lairs, and in their dens they remain.

Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go? Will they say to you, 'Here we are'?