Job 31

Revised Geneva Translation

31 “I made a covenant with my eyes. Why, then, should I look upon a maid?

² “What portion is of God from above, and inheritance of the Almighty from on high?

³ “Is it not destruction to the wicked, and strange calamity to the workers of iniquity?

⁴ “Does He not behold my ways, and tell all my steps,

⁵ “if I have walked in vanity or if my foot has hurried to deceit?

⁶ “Let God weigh me in the just balance, and He shall know my uprightness.

⁷ “If my step has turned out of the way, or my heart has walked after my eye, or if any blot has clung to my hands,

⁸ “let me sow, and let another eat. Yea, let my plants be rooted out.

⁹ “If my heart has been deceived by a woman, or if I have laid wait at the door of my neighbor,

¹⁰ “let my wife grind to another man, and let other men bow down upon her.

¹¹ “For this is a wickedness, and iniquity, to be condemned.

¹² “Yea, this is a fire that shall devour to destruction, and which shall root out all my increase.

¹³ “If I contemned the judgment of my servant, and of my maid, when they contended with me,

¹⁴ “what then shall I do when God stands up? And when He shall visit, what shall I answer?

¹⁵ “He Who has made me in the womb, has He not made him? Has not He alone fashioned us in the womb?

¹⁶ “If I kept the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

¹⁷ “or have eaten my morsels alone, and the fatherless has not eaten of them

¹⁸ “(for from my youth has he grown up with me, as with a father, and from my mother’s womb have I been a guide to her).

¹⁹ “If I have seen any perish for lack of clothing, or any poor without covering,

²⁰ “if his loins have not thanked me because he was warmed with the fleece of my sheep,

²¹ “if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless when I saw that I might help him in the gate,

²² “let my arm fall from my shoulder, and my arm be broken from the bone.

²³ “For God’s punishment is fearful to me, and I could not be delivered from His Highness.

²⁴ “If I made gold my hope, or have said to the wedge of gold, ‘You are my confidence,’

²⁵ “if I rejoiced because my substance was great, or because my hand had gotten much,

²⁶ “if I beheld the Sun when it shined, or the Moon walking in brightness,

²⁷ “if my heart flattered me in secret, or if my mouth kissed my hand,

²⁸ “(this also had been an iniquity to be condemned, for I had denied the God above),

²⁹ “if I rejoiced at his destruction who hated me, or was moved to joy when evil came upon him

³⁰ “(no, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by wishing a curse on his soul),

³¹ “have the men of my Tabernacle not said, ‘Who has not been satisfied with his food?’

³² “The stranger did not lodge in the street. I opened my doors to him who went by the way.

³³ “I have hidden my sins, as Adam, concealing my iniquity in my bosom.

³⁴ “Though I feared a great multitude, yet the most contemptible of the families feared me. So I kept silent, and did not go out of the door.

³⁵ “Oh that I had someone to hear me! Behold, my sign that the Almighty will witness for me. Though my adversary would write a book,

³⁶ “would not I take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a crown to me?

³⁷ “I will tell him the number of my goings, and go to him as to a prince.

³⁸ “If my land cries against me, or its furrows complain together,

³⁹ “if I have eaten its fruits without silver, or I have grieved the souls of its masters,

⁴⁰ “let thistles grow instead of wheat, and stinkweed in the place of barley.” THE WORDS OF JOB ARE ENDED.