Study Desk

For God has made my heart feeble, and my mind is troubled before the Ruler of all.

From the town come sounds of pain from those who are near death, and the soul of the wounded is crying out for help; but God does not take note of their prayer.

But God by his power gives long life to the strong; he gets up again, though he has no hope of life.

How then is it possible for man to be upright before God? or how may he be clean who is a son of woman?

By the life of God, who has taken away my right; and of the Ruler of all, who has made my soul bitter;

(For all my breath is still in me, and the spirit of God is my life;)

For what is the hope of the sinner when he is cut off, when God takes back his soul?

Will his cry come to the ears of God when he is in trouble?

Will he take delight in the Ruler of all, and make his prayer to God at all times?

I will give you teaching about the hand of God; I will not keep secret from you what is in the mind of the Ruler of all.

This is the punishment of the evil-doer from God, and the heritage given to the cruel by the Ruler of all.

God sends his arrows against him without mercy; he goes in flight before his hand.

God has knowledge of the way to it, and of its resting-place;

If only I might again be as I was in the months which are past, in the days when God was watching over me!

As I was in my flowering years, when my tent was covered by the hand of God;

Truly God has made me low, even to the earth, and I have become like dust.

(Let me be measured in upright scales, and let God see my righteousness:)

What then will I do when God comes as my judge? and what answer may I give to his questions?

Did not God make him as well as me? did he not give us life in our mothers' bodies?

(For I was cared for by God as by a father from my earliest days; he was my guide from the body of my mother;)