Study Desk

All the work of his authority and his powerful deeds, and the full accounting of the greatness of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, are they not written on the scroll of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?

For Mordecai the Jew was second-in-command to King Ahasuerus. He was great for the Jews and popular with many of his brothers, for he sought good for his people, interceding for the welfare of all his descendants.

Then his livestock came to be seven thousand sheep and goats and three thousand camels and five hundred pairs of oxen and five hundred female donkeys, and he had very many slaves, and that man was greater than all the people of the east.

And his sons used to go and hold a feast at each other's house on his day, and they would send, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.

Have you not put a fence around him and his household and around all that belongs to him on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock has increased in the land.

And then there was one day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their firstborn brother's house.

Then Job arose and tore his outer garment and shaved his head; then he fell upon the ground and he worshiped.

So Yahweh asked Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? Indeed, there is no one like him on the earth—a blameless man and upright and God-fearing and turning away from evil. And still he persists in his blamelessness even though you incited me against him to destroy him for nothing."

Then Satan answered him and said, "Skin for skin! All that that man has he will give for his life.

But stretch out your hand and touch his bones and his flesh, and see whether he will curse you to your face."

So Yahweh said to Satan, "All right, he is in your power. Only spare his life."

So Satan went out from Yahweh's presence, and he inflicted Job with loathsome skin sores from the sole of his foot up to the crown of his head.

Then his wife said to him, "Are you still persisting in your blamelessness? Curse God and die."

So he said to her, "You speak like one of the foolish women speaks. Indeed, should we receive the good from God, but not receive the evil?" In all this, Job did not sin with his lips.

Thus Job's three friends heard of this calamity that had come upon him. So each set out from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite. And they met together to come to console him and to comfort him.

Thus they lifted up their eyes from afar, but they did not recognize him, so they raised their voice, and they wept, and each man tore his outer garment and threw dust on their heads toward the sky.

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

Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.

The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his masters.

By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they come to an end.