5th December

¹ But Job answered and said,² Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!³ For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up.⁴ For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.⁵ Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder?⁶ Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?⁷ The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.⁸ Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for!⁹ Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!¹⁰ Then should I yet have comfort; yea, I would harden myself in sorrow: let him not spare; for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One.¹¹ What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?¹² Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass?¹³ Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?¹⁴ To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.¹⁵ My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away;¹⁶ Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid:¹⁷ What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.¹⁸ The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish.¹⁹ The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them.²⁰ They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed.²¹ For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down, and are afraid.²² Did I say, Bring unto me? or, Give a reward for me of your substance?²³ Or, Deliver me from the enemy's hand? or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty?²⁴ Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred.²⁵ How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove?²⁶ Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind?²⁷ Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend.²⁸ Now therefore be content, look upon me; for it is evident unto you if I lie.²⁹ Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it.³⁰ Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things?

¹ Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?² As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work:³ So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.⁴ When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.⁵ My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.⁶ My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.⁷ O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.⁸ The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.⁹ As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.¹⁰ He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.¹¹ Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.¹² Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?¹³ When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaints;¹⁴ Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:¹⁵ So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.¹⁶ I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity.¹⁷ What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?¹⁸ And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?¹⁹ How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?²⁰ I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?²¹ And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.

¹ Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.² And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.³ Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil.⁴ In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he hath changed the portion of my people: how hath he removed it from me! turning away he hath divided our fields.⁵ Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast a cord by lot in the congregation of the LORD.⁶ Prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy: they shall not prophesy to them, that they shall not take shame.⁷ O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the spirit of the LORD straitened? are these his doings? do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?⁸ Even of late my people is risen up as an enemy: ye pull off the robe with the garment from them that pass by securely as men averse from war.⁹ The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their children have ye taken away my glory for ever.¹⁰ Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.¹¹ If 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.¹² I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men.¹³ The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them.

¹ Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,² Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.³ For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.⁴ Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.⁵ And 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:⁶ For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.⁷ If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?⁸ But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.⁹ Furthermore 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?¹⁰ For 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.¹¹ Now 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.¹² Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;¹³ And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.¹⁴ Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:¹⁵ Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;¹⁶ Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.¹⁷ For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.¹⁸ For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,¹⁹ And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:²⁰ (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:²¹ And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)²² But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,²³ To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,²⁴ And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things that that of Abel.²⁵ See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:²⁶ Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.²⁷ And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.²⁸ Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:²⁹ For our God is a consuming fire.