Job 4:17–21

²I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?

⁴How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?

²⁰For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.

²And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.

⁹¶ The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

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!

¹RIGHTEOUS art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?

¹⁴What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

¹⁰But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;

²Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God’s?

⁸Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?

²⁰And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.

²¹For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

²²Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:

²³All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

¹⁷The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.

⁸And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.

⁵But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

⁴God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

⁵But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)

⁶God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?

⁷For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?

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?

²⁵That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

⁴Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.

³Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?

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

³¹Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.

⁴For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

⁵Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.

⁶How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?

⁶And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

¹⁵Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.

¹⁶How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?

²⁰Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.

²¹Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.

⁴Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:

²Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

³And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

⁹Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?

⁷And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

¹⁹In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

⁶Behold, I am according to thy wish in God’s stead: I also am formed out of the clay.

⁷But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

¹FOR we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

²⁷And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes:

¹²Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.

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

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.

²⁴For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

⁷Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

²He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

¹⁶Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood:

¹⁵As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

¹⁶For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

⁵Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.

⁶In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

⁷For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.

⁴His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

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

⁶And nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city: for God did vex them with all adversity.

²⁰Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed without being desired. Howbeit they buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings.

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.

¹⁴If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

²He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

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

²²When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.

¹⁷His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street.

⁷The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot.

³⁶Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

¹³O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.

⁵Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.

⁶In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

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:

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

²²They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nought.

²²And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;

²³And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

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.

¹⁶They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

²²Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?

¹¹For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

²¹Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God.

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?

³Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

⁴His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

⁵Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.

¹⁴Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.

²⁰Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.