Job 31:5–8

¹¹He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding.

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.

⁸Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord God.

⁵¶ Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

¹¹If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people.

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

²O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah.

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.

²⁷TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

⁸The Lord shall judge the people: judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me.

⁹Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.

³Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.

⁷The way of the just is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just.

²³And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

⁵God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.

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

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

²²The Lord God of gods, the Lord God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know; if it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the Lord, (save us not this day,)

¹¹Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?

¹¹A just weight and balance are the Lord’s: all the weights of the bag are his work.

⁶For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

²³Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

²Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal.

³Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.

¹⁹Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

¹JUDGE me, O Lord; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the Lord; therefore I shall not slide.

³⁹And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:

⁹¶ Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

²⁹And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

³Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?

⁷For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to inquire of him concerning me; I the Lord will answer him by myself:

⁹And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall lothe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

¹⁵He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;

¹¹My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined.

³I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.

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.

³⁰If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;

¹⁶I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

¹⁵Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine.

³⁸Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.

³⁰Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.

³¹Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to rescue them.

³²Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long: and there shall be no might in thine hand.

³³The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway:

⁵¹And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.

³⁰He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away.

¹⁹He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings.

¹⁸That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down: according to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein.

⁶They reap every one his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked.

⁴His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them.

⁵Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.

³And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them;

⁴And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.

⁵For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.

⁶And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord.

¹³Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.