³⁵ All his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” Thus his father bewailed him.^(A)

Job’s Three Friends

¹¹ Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him.^(A)

¹⁷ The elders of his house stood beside him urging him to rise from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them.

³⁸ But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he alone is left. If harm should come to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”^(A)

²⁸ Israel said, “Enough! My son Joseph is still alive. I must go and see him before I die.”

²⁹ If you take this one also from me and harm comes to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in sorrow to Sheol.’^{(A) 30} Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, ³¹ when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol.

³¹ But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we are not spies.^(A)

²² While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine, and Israel heard of it.

Now the sons of Jacob were twelve.^{(A) 23} The sons of Leah: Reuben (Jacob’s firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. ²⁴ The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. ²⁵ The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s maid: Dan and Naphtali. ²⁶ The sons of Zilpah, Leah’s maid: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.