Job 7-8

Job 7

¹Hath not man a life of labour upon earth? and are not his days like the days of a hireling?

²As a bondman earnestly desireth the shadow, and a hireling expecteth his wages,

³So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.

⁴If I lie down, I say, When shall I rise up, and the darkness be gone? and I am full of tossings until the dawn.

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

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.

⁷Remember thou that my life is wind; mine eye shall no more see good.

⁸The eye of him that hath seen me shall behold me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.

⁹The cloud consumeth and vanisheth away; so he that goeth down to Sheol shall not come up.

¹⁰He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him again.

¹¹Therefore I will not restrain my mouth: I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I a sea, or a sea-monster, that thou settest a watch over me?

¹³When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;

¹⁴Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions;

¹⁵So that my soul chooseth strangling, death, rather than my bones.

¹⁶I loathe it; I shall not live always: let me alone, for my days are a breath.

¹⁷What is man, that thou makest much of him? and that thou settest thy heart upon him?

¹⁸And that thou visitest him every morning, triest him every moment?

¹⁹How long wilt thou not look away from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?

²⁰Have I sinned, what do I unto thee, thou Observer of men? Why hast thou set me as an object of assault for thee, so that I am become a burden to myself?

²¹And why dost not thou forgive my transgression and take away mine iniquity? for now shall I lie down in the dust, and thou shalt seek me early, and I shall not be.

Job 8

¹And Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,

²How long wilt thou speak these things? and the words of thy mouth be a strong wind?

³Doth God pervert judgment, and the Almighty pervert justice?

⁴If thy children have sinned against him, he hath also given them over into the hand of their transgression.

⁵If thou seek earnestly unto God, and make thy supplication to the Almighty,

⁶If thou be pure and upright, surely now he will awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous;

⁷And though thy beginning was small, yet thine end shall be very great.

⁸For inquire, I pray thee, of the former generation, and attend to the researches of their fathers;

⁹For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, for our days upon earth are a shadow.

¹⁰Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart?

¹¹Doth the papyrus shoot up without mire? doth the reed-grass grow without water?

¹²Whilst it is yet in its greenness and not cut down, it withereth before any other grass.

¹³So are the paths of all that forget God; and the profane man's hope shall perish,

¹⁴Whose confidence shall be cut off, and his reliance is a spider's web.

¹⁵He shall lean upon his house, and it shall not stand; he shall lay hold on it, but it shall not endure.

¹⁶He is full of sap before the sun, and his sprout shooteth forth over his garden;

¹⁷His roots are entwined about the stoneheap; he seeth the place of stones.

¹⁸If he destroy him from his place, then it shall deny him: I have not seen thee!

¹⁹Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the dust shall others grow.

²⁰Behold, God will not cast off a perfect man, neither will he take evil-doers by the hand.

²¹Whilst he would fill thy mouth with laughing and thy lips with shouting,

²²They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked be no more.