Job 17:1–8

¹⁰I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.

¹¹I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.

¹²Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

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.

¹⁴Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.

³For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

⁴I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

⁵Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

¹⁶For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.

¹³If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.

¹⁴I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.

¹⁷My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body.

¹⁶After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, even four generations.

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

⁶And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb.

⁷And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat.

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

²⁰My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God.

³⁹¶ And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,

⁴⁰And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.

⁴¹Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said,

⁴²He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.

⁴³He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

⁴⁴The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.

⁹Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him?

³Suffer me that I may speak; and after that I have spoken, mock on.

¹³His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth.

¹⁴I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother.

¹⁵But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not:

¹⁶With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.

¹HE that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

²²By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.

¹⁴Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.

¹⁵He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it: and he that hateth suretiship is sure.

⁹I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever:

³²For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father for ever.

¹²²Be surety for thy servant for good: let not the proud oppress me.

³³Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.

²⁶Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts.

¹⁸A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.

¹⁶Take his garment that is surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.

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

²⁵¶ At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.

¹¹He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

²⁰Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

¹⁴And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom.

¹⁴The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.

⁸(According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.

¹⁶And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou made of the king’s counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten? Then the prophet forbare, and said, I know that God hath determined to destroy thee, because thou hast done this, and hast not hearkened unto my counsel.

³¹¶ And one told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.

²They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.

³The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things:

¹⁹He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets: therefore meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips.

⁵A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet.

¹²Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it for David thy father’s sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son.

⁶⁵And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind:

⁵Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

²⁰But the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost.

²¹Let me not, I pray you, accept any man’s person, neither let me give flattering titles unto man.

²²For I know not to give flattering titles; in so doing my maker would soon take me away.

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

¹⁷As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

⁹And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.

¹⁴Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.

⁷Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people:

²⁷Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me; and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away with mirth, and with songs, with tabret, and with harp?

¹²And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands.

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

⁷Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies.

⁹Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.

¹⁰For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.

¹²For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?

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.

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

²³I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.

⁸¶ If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.

¹³Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?

⁴⁶Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.

¹⁹The righteous see it, and are glad: and the innocent laugh them to scorn.

³⁰That the hypocrite reign not, lest the people be ensnared.

¹²Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.

¹³Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.

¹⁴For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.

¹⁵If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.

³³O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!