Day 228 of 730

¹Then Job answered,

²"How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?

³You have reproached me ten times. You aren't ashamed that you attack me.

⁴If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

⁵If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach;

⁶know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.

⁷"Behold, I cry out 'Injustice!' but there is no justice.

⁸He has walled up my way so that I can't pass, and has set darkness in my paths.

⁹He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope he has plucked up like a tree.

¹¹He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.

¹²His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.

¹³"He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

¹⁴My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight.

¹⁶I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.

¹⁷My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.

¹⁸Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.

¹⁹All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.

²⁰My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

²¹"Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me.

²²Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

²³"Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!

²⁵But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth.

²⁶After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God,

²⁷Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger. "My heart is consumed within me.

²⁸If you say, 'How we will persecute him!' because the root of the matter is found in me,

²⁹be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment."

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite answered,

²"Therefore do my thoughts give answer to me, even by reason of my haste that is in me.

³I have heard the reproof which puts me to shame. The spirit of my understanding answers me.

⁴Do you not know this from old time, since man was placed on earth,

⁵that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment?

⁶Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds,

⁷yet he shall perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him shall say, 'Where is he?'

⁸He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found. Yes, he shall be chased away like a vision of the night.

⁹The eye which saw him shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more see him.

¹⁰His children shall seek the favor of the poor. His hands shall give back his wealth.

¹¹His bones are full of his youth, but youth shall lie down with him in the dust.

¹²"Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue,

¹³though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth;

¹⁴yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom within him.

¹⁵He has swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly.

¹⁶He shall suck cobra venom. The viper's tongue shall kill him.

¹⁷He shall not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter.

¹⁸That for which he labored he shall restore, and shall not swallow it down. According to the substance that he has gotten, he shall not rejoice.

¹⁹For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he shall not build it up.

²⁰"Because he knew no quietness within him, he shall not save anything of that in which he delights.

²¹There was nothing left that he did not devour, therefore his prosperity shall not endure.

²²In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress shall overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery shall come on him.

²³When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating.

²⁴He shall flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow shall strike him through.

²⁵He draws it forth, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him.

²⁶All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire shall devour him. It shall consume that which is left in his tent.

²⁷The heavens shall reveal his iniquity. The earth shall rise up against him.

²⁸The increase of his house shall depart. They shall rush away in the day of his wrath.

²⁹This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God."

¹Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth.

²I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old,

³which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

⁴We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, his strength, and his wondrous works that he has done.

⁵For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;

⁶that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children,

⁷that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments,

⁸and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God.

⁹The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.

¹⁰They did not keep God's covenant, and refused to walk by his Law.

¹¹They forgot his doings, his wondrous works that he had shown them.

¹²He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.

¹³He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap.

¹⁴In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire.

¹⁵He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths.

¹⁶He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.

¹⁷Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert.

¹⁸They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire.

¹⁹Yes, they spoke against God. They said, "Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?

²⁰Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Will he provide flesh for his people?"

²¹Therefore the Lord heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel,

²²because they did not believe in God, and did not trust in his salvation.

²³Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven.

²⁴He rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them bread from heaven.

²⁵Man ate the bread of angels. He sent them food to the full.

²⁶He caused the east wind to blow in the sky. By his power he guided the south wind.

²⁷He rained also flesh on them as the dust; winged birds as the sand of the seas.

²⁸He let them fall in the midst of their camp, around their habitations.

²⁹So they ate, and were well filled. He gave them their own desire.

³⁰They did not turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths,

³¹when the anger of God went up against them, killed some of the fattest of them, and struck down the young men of Israel.

³²For all this they still sinned, and did not believe in his wondrous works.

³³Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.

³⁴When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly.

³⁵They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer.

³⁶But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue.

³⁷For their heart was not right with him, neither were they faithful in his covenant.

³⁸But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and did not destroy them. Yes, many times he turned his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath.

³⁹He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn't come again.

⁴⁰How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert!

⁴¹They turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They did not remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;

⁴³how he set his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the field of Zoan,

⁴⁴he turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink.

⁴⁵He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.

⁴⁶He gave also their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.

⁴⁷He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost.

⁴⁸He gave over their livestock also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

⁴⁹He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of destroying angels.

⁵⁰He made a path for his anger. He did not spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,

⁵¹and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.

⁵²But he led forth his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

⁵³He led them safely, so that they weren't afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

⁵⁴He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to this mountain, which his right hand had taken.

⁵⁵He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.

⁵⁶Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and did not keep his testimonies;

⁵⁷but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.

⁵⁸For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.

⁵⁹When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel;

⁶⁰So that he forsook the tent of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men;

⁶¹and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary's hand.

⁶²He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance.

⁶³Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song.

⁶⁴Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn't weep.

⁶⁵Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine.

⁶⁶He struck his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach.

⁶⁷Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph, and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,

⁶⁸But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved.

⁶⁹He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever.

⁷⁰He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds;

⁷¹from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.

⁷²So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.

¹A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but accurate weights are his delight.

²When pride comes, then comes shame, but with humility comes wisdom.

³The integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of the treacherous shall destroy them.

⁴Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.

⁵The righteousness of the blameless will direct his way, but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.

⁶The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but the unfaithful will be trapped by evil desires.

⁷When a wicked man dies, hope perishes, and expectation of power comes to nothing.

⁸A righteous person is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked takes his place.

⁹With his mouth the godless man destroys his neighbor, but the righteous will be delivered through knowledge.

¹⁰When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices. When the wicked perish, there is shouting.

¹¹By the blessing of the upright, the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.

¹²One who despises his neighbor is void of wisdom, but a man of understanding holds his peace.

¹³One who brings gossip betrays a confidence, but one who is of a trustworthy spirit is one who keeps a secret.

¹⁴Where there is no wise guidance, the nation falls, but in the multitude of counselors there is victory.

¹⁵He who is collateral for a stranger will suffer for it, but he who refuses pledges of collateral is secure.

¹⁶A gracious woman obtains honor, but violent men obtain riches.

¹⁷The merciful man does good to his own soul, but he who is cruel troubles his own flesh.

¹⁸Wicked people earn deceitful wages, but one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.

¹⁹He who is truly righteous gets life. He who pursues evil gets death.

²⁰Those who are perverse in heart are an abomination to the Lord, but those whose ways are blameless are his delight.

²¹Most certainly, the evil man will not be unpunished, but the seed of the righteous will be delivered.

²²Like a gold ring in a pig's snout, is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.

²³The desire of the righteous is only good. The expectation of the wicked is wrath.

²⁴There is one who scatters, and increases yet more. There is one who withholds more than is appropriate, but gains poverty.

²⁵The liberal soul shall be made fat. He who waters shall be watered also himself.

²⁶People curse someone who withholds grain, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it.

²⁷He who diligently seeks good seeks favor, but he who searches after evil, it shall come to him.

²⁸He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous shall flourish as the green leaf.

²⁹He who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind. The foolish shall be servant to the wise of heart.

³⁰The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. He who is wise wins souls.

³¹Behold, the righteous shall be repaid in the earth; how much more the wicked and the sinner!