Job 33:21–24

²⁰My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.

²⁸And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.

⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.

¹¹And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

²⁰Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.

²²But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.

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.

³For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.

⁴My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.

⁵By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.

¹⁵My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

¹⁶For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

¹⁷I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.

³When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.

⁴For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

¹¹When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.

¹⁶And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite.

²⁸He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.

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

⁶The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.

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.

²³For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.

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.

²¹A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him.

¹MY breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.

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.

¹⁵And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

¹⁶They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.

⁷O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.

⁴Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.

³O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

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.

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.

¹BEHOLD, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.

²⁰Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

²⁸Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.

¹³Then spake Haggai the Lord’s messenger in the Lord’s message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord.

⁷For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.

¹⁴Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice.

²⁵¶ Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?

²⁶When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die.

²⁷Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.

²⁸Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.

⁵And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

⁶For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

⁷If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

⁸But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

⁹Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

¹⁰For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

¹¹Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

¹²Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

¹THE Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

²To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

³To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

³I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.

⁸And if they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction;

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

¹⁰He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity.

¹¹If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.

¹²But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.

¹³But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath: they cry not when he bindeth them.

²³Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: he will not afflict.

²²¶ It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

²³They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

³²But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

³⁹Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

⁴⁰Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.

⁴¹Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.

⁷⁵I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.

¹²Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law;

³⁰For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.

³¹For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

³²But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.

¹⁵And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place:

¹⁶But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.

⁶And that he would shew thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is! Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.

¹⁰Therefore hearken unto me, ye men of understanding: far be it from God, that he should do wickedness; and from the Almighty, that he should commit iniquity.

¹²Yea, surely God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment.

³²That which I see not teach thou me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more.

¹⁴Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust thou in him.

³If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.

¹AND an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.

³³Howbeit thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly:

³⁰And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?

¹³For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:

⁷None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:

⁸(For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:)

¹⁸Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

¹⁹But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

¹⁸He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.

²⁸Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

⁶Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

¹⁹And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.

⁴¶ I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.

²¹Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee.

¹⁸Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.

¹⁹He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

²⁰Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.

²⁰Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

²¹That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹¹As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.

⁶And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

⁷Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

¹⁷Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

¹⁸For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

¹⁹The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.

²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.

¹⁰He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity.

¹¹If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.

¹⁸Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee.

⁴Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

⁹What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?

¹⁰Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me: Lord, be thou my helper.

¹¹Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;

¹²To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.

²He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

³Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress.

¹³For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

¹⁵But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.

⁵For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.

²⁴Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

²⁵Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

²⁶To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

²Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.