3rd December

¹ After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.² And Job spake, and said,³ Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.⁴ Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.⁵ Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.⁶ As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.⁷ Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.⁸ Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.⁹ Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:¹⁰ Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.¹¹ Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?¹² Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?¹³ For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,¹⁴ With kings and counsellors of the earth, which build desolate places for themselves;¹⁵ Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:¹⁶ Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.¹⁷ There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.¹⁸ There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.¹⁹ The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.²⁰ Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;²¹ Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;²² Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?²³ Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?²⁴ For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.²⁵ For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.²⁶ I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

¹ Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,² If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but who can withhold himself from speaking?³ Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands.⁴ Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.⁵ But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.⁶ Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?⁷ Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?⁸ Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.⁹ By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.¹⁰ The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.¹¹ The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad.¹² Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.¹³ In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,¹⁴ Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.¹⁵ Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:¹⁶ It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,¹⁷ Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?¹⁸ Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:¹⁹ How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?²⁰ They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.²¹ Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.

¹ But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.² And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.³ Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.⁴ Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?⁵ So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.⁶ And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.⁷ But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.⁸ And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.⁹ And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.¹⁰ Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:¹¹ And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more then sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

¹ For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.² For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.³ But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.⁴ For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.⁵ Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:⁶ In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.⁷ Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.⁸ Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;⁹ Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.¹⁰ By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.¹¹ And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:¹² But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;¹³ From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.¹⁴ For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.¹⁵ Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,¹⁶ This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;¹⁷ And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.¹⁸ Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.¹⁹ Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,²⁰ By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;²¹ And having an high priest over the house of God;²² Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.²³ Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)²⁴ And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:²⁵ Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.²⁶ For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,²⁷ But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.²⁸ He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:²⁹ Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?³⁰ For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.³¹ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.³² But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;³³ Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used.³⁴ For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.³⁵ Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.³⁶ For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.³⁷ For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.³⁸ Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.³⁹ But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.