Study Desk

And when much time had passed, his wife said to him, How long wilt thou hold out, saying, Behold, I wait yet a little while, expecting the hope of my deliverance? for, behold, thy memorial is abolished from the earth, even thy sons and daughters, the pangs and pains of my womb which I bore in vain with sorrows; and thou thyself sittest down to spend the nights in the open air among the corruption of worms, and I am a wanderer and a servant from place to place and house to house, waiting for the setting of the sun, that I may rest from my labours and my pangs which now beset me: but say some word against the Lord, and die.

Now his three friends having heard of all the evil that was come upon him, came to him each from his own country: Eliphaz the king of the Thaemans, Baldad sovereign of the Saucheans, Sophar king of he Minaeans: and they came to him with one accord, to comfort and to visit him.

And when they saw him from a distance they did not know him; and they cried with a loud voice, and wept, and rent every one his garment, and sprinkled dust upon their heads,

and they sat down beside him seven days and seven nights, and no one of them spoke; for they saw that his affliction was dreadful and very great.

After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day,

or I should have been as an untimely birth proceeding from his mother’s womb, or as infants who never saw light.

The small and great are there, and the servant that feared his lord.

They shall perish by the command of the Lord, and shall be utterly consumed by the breath of his wrath.

What, shall a mortal be pure before the Lord? or a man be blameless in regard to his works?

Whereas he trust not in his servants, and perceives perverseness in his angels.

for he causes a man to be in pain, and restores him again: he smites, and his hands heal.

Is not the life of man upon earth a state of trial? and his existence as that of a hireling by the day?

Or as a servant that fears his master, and one who has grasped a shadow? or as a hireling waiting for his pay?

and he shall surely not return to his own house, neither shall his place know him any more.

For his house shall be without inhabitants, and his tent shall prove a spider’s web.

If he should prop up his house, it shall not stand: and when he has taken hold of it, it shall not remain.

For it is moist under the sun, and his branch shall come forth out of his dung-heap.

If God should destroy him, his place shall deny him. Hast thou not seen such things,

For if he would enter into judgment with him, God would not hearken to him, so that he should answer to one of his charges of a thousand.

For if he has turned away his anger, the whales under heaven have stooped under him.