Job 10:15–17

¹¹Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.

¹⁵Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my judge.

²⁰If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.

²¹Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life.

⁷Thou knowest that I am not wicked; and there is none that can deliver out of thine hand.

⁵¶ Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

¹⁸Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

¹⁸Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins.

⁷¶ And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

⁵Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.

⁶But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

⁶Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh.

¹⁵Therefore am I troubled at his presence: when I consider, I am afraid of him.

⁷Let mine enemy be as the wicked, and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous.

¹²Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, What doest thou?

²⁹If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?

²⁰Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.

¹REMEMBER, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.

²Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.

³We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

⁴We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.

⁵Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest.

⁶We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

⁷Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.

⁸Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.

⁹We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.

¹⁰Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.

¹¹They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.

¹²Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.

¹³They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.

¹⁴The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.

¹⁵The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

¹⁶The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!

¹⁷For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.

¹⁸Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.

¹⁹Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.

²⁰Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?

²¹Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

²²But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.

¹⁰So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.

¹⁵³Consider mine affliction, and deliver me: for I do not forget thy law.

¹⁷The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

⁸But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,

⁹Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;

¹³I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

¹⁰He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.

⁹Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number:

⁸The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?

⁵⁹Then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.

⁷Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them:

⁸I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.

²⁹If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the Lord hath not sent me.

³⁰But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord.

⁸And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face.

²¹I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?

¹¹¶ Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.

¹¹God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.

¹³His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.

¹⁴He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.

¹⁵I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.

¹⁶My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

⁶Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net.

⁷Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.

⁸He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.

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

¹⁰He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree.

¹¹He hath also kindled his wrath against me, and he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies.

¹⁹God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.

¹²And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.