Job 16:17–21

⁸The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

¹⁸If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:

¹⁹But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.

⁶My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.

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

⁵If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty;

⁶If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.

⁶Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

¹⁴If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles.

²⁰The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.

³⁴For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery.

²⁷Behold, I know your thoughts, and the devices which ye wrongfully imagine against me.

²⁸For ye say, Where is the house of the prince? and where are the dwelling places of the wicked?

⁵Is not thy wickedness great? and thine iniquities infinite?

⁶For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing.

⁷Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry.

⁸But as for the mighty man, he had the earth; and the honourable man dwelt in it.

⁹Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.

¹²Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.

¹³The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.

¹⁴I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.

¹⁵I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.

¹⁶I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.

¹⁷And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.

¹I MADE a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?

²For what portion of God is there from above? and what inheritance of the Almighty from on high?

³Is not destruction to the wicked? and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?

⁴Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps?

⁵If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to deceit;

⁶Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity.

⁷If my step hath turned out of the way, and mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands;

⁸Then let me sow, and let another eat; yea, let my offspring be rooted out.

⁹If mine heart have been deceived by a woman, or if I have laid wait at my neighbour’s door;

¹⁰Then let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon her.

¹¹For this is an heinous crime; yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges.

¹²For it is a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase.

¹³If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant, when they contended with me;

¹⁴What then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?

¹⁵Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?

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

¹⁷Or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof;

¹⁸(For from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother’s womb;)

¹⁹If I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering;

²⁰If his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep;

²¹If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate:

²²Then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone.

²³For destruction from God was a terror to me, and by reason of his highness I could not endure.

²⁴If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence;

²⁵If I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much;

²⁶If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness;

²⁷And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand:

²⁸This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above.

²⁹If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him:

³⁰Neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul.

³¹If the men of my tabernacle said not, Oh that we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied.

³²The stranger did not lodge in the street: but I opened my doors to the traveller.

³³If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom:

³⁴Did I fear a great multitude, or did the contempt of families terrify me, that I kept silence, and went not out of the door?

³⁵Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book.

³⁶Surely I would take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me.

³⁷I would declare unto him the number of my steps; as a prince would I go near unto him.

³⁸If my land cry against me, or that the furrows likewise thereof complain;

³⁹If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life:

⁴⁰Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The words of Job are ended.

⁸But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

¹⁷All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant.

¹⁸Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way;

¹⁹Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.

²⁰If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;

²¹Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.

³O Lord my God, if I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands;

⁴If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy:)

⁵Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honour in the dust. Selah.

⁸I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.

⁷For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust;

²¹For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

¹¹And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;

¹⁸If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:

¹⁹But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.

¹⁵And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

⁹Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

¹⁰And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:

³Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

⁴Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

²⁹O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.

⁹Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him?

⁵And cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee: for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders.

⁹For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;

¹⁰Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe:

⁵⁰If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee.

⁵And he said unto them, The Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that ye have not found ought in my hand. And they answered, He is witness.

⁵For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness:

²³Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth.

³¹The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not.

²Dominion and fear are with him, he maketh peace in his high places.

⁵Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high,

¹I SAY the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,

⁷Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;

²I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble.

⁴I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn.

⁵He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.

⁴I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.

²Are there not mockers with me? and doth not mine eye continue in their provocation?

¹¹And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.

¹²And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.

⁴For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.

⁴Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Beth-el, and there he spake with us;

⁵Even the Lord God of hosts; the Lord is his memorial.

¹⁰That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he.

⁹Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?

²⁰Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

²²Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me.

³Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.

³Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!

⁴I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.

⁵I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me.

⁶Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me.

⁷There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge.

³⁵Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book.

¹MOREOVER the Lord answered Job, and said,

²Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.

³¶ Then Job answered the Lord, and said,

⁴Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.

⁵Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further.

³⁴Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me:

³⁵Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.