and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom.

In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life.

He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake.

“If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales!

so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.

If I have sinned, what have I done to you, you who see everything we do? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you?

When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.

Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless.

It is all the same; that is why I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’

I still dread all my sufferings, for I know you will not hold me innocent.

If I sinned, you would be watching me and would not let my offense go unpunished.

“Are all these words to go unanswered? Is this talker to be vindicated?

if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent,

But I have a mind as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know all these things?

Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?

In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

“My eyes have seen all this, my ears have heard and understood it.

You, however, smear me with lies; you are worthless physicians, all of you!

You fasten my feet in shackles; you keep close watch on all my paths by putting marks on the soles of my feet.

If someone dies, will they live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come.

You overpower them once for all, and they are gone; you change their countenance and send them away.