Job 15:19–27

¹⁷So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.

⁸When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

²⁵And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

³²These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

¹GO to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

²Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

³Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

⁴Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

⁵Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.

⁶Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

¹³This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage of oppressors, which they shall receive of the Almighty.

¹WHY, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days?

¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

²⁰But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

²¹So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

³This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

¹²So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

³Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

⁴For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

²²For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

¹¹Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.

³For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

³⁶And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.

¹⁰Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.

¹³¶ And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:

¹⁴And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them:

¹⁵And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

¹⁶While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

¹⁷While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

¹⁸While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:

¹⁹And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

²²In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him.

²³When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating.

²⁴He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through.

²⁵It is drawn, and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall: terrors are upon him.

⁵That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?

⁶Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds;

⁷Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?

²⁰Terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest stealeth him away in the night.

²⁶I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

²⁷When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

⁷When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever:

¹¹And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

³⁶¶ And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.

³⁷But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.

³⁸And it came to pass about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died.

⁹And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

¹⁰And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

¹⁸Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction.

¹⁹How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors.

²⁰As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.

⁶For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.

²¹And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them.

²²And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.

²³And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.

²⁴He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through.

²⁵It is drawn, and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall: terrors are upon him.

³³And while he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger came down unto him: and he said, Behold, this evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer?

²¹And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.

²²And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.

²⁹Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.

¹⁴If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword: and his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread.

¹¹What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?

¹⁶If I had called, and he had answered me; yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice.

⁵And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

¹²His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side.

¹⁰Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

¹⁵Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied.

²⁰Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

⁸But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.

¹²When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

²⁷But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

³⁷They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;

³⁸(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

¹⁸He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.

⁵Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.

⁶The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him.

³For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.

⁴Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.

²A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.

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

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

¹⁵That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,

³⁴So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.

¹¹So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.

³I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness.

²Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!

³For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up.

⁴For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.

³⁷And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.

³⁸Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.

²⁷When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

¹⁴³Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me: yet thy commandments are my delights.

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

²³But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified:

⁴He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered?

⁷Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.

⁹They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.

⁶Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?

⁹Then he sheweth them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded.

¹³¶ Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?

¹¹And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?

⁷And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore.

⁸Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? these are the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness.

⁹Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and fight.

¹NOW about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church.

²³And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.

⁵And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

²And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.

³And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.

¹⁷As yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go?

¹²Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.

¹³For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man:

¹⁴And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.

⁴Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.

⁴Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, the first, and with the last; I am he.

⁵The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.

⁶They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage.

⁷So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the sodering: and he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved.

⁹¶ Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces.

¹⁰Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.

⁹Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?

¹⁰Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

¹¹Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

²³And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me;

¹³Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands? were the gods of the nations of those lands any ways able to deliver their lands out of mine hand?

¹⁴Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of mine hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of mine hand?

¹⁵Now therefore let not Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you on this manner, neither yet believe him: for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of mine hand, and out of the hand of my fathers: how much less shall your God deliver you out of mine hand?

¹⁶And his servants spake yet more against the Lord God, and against his servant Hezekiah.

¹⁷He wrote also letters to rail on the Lord God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of mine hand.

²²¶ And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord: this is that king Ahaz.

⁸¶ Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.

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.

⁴⁰Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me.

¹⁰They are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly.

¹⁰Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

²⁸They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.

⁷Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish.

¹⁵¶ But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁰But as for you all, do ye return, and come now: for I cannot find one wise man among you.

³¹The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.