and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life.

He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

“Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul,

Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?

fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake.

“If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales!

Have I ever said, ‘Give something on my behalf, pay a ransom for me from your wealth,

so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.

“What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention,

Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless.

They lean on the web, but it gives way; they cling to it, but it does not hold.

Even if I summoned him and he responded, I do not believe he would give me a hearing.

It is all the same; that is why I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’

I still dread all my sufferings, for I know you will not hold me innocent.

“I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.

“Are all these words to go unanswered? Is this talker to be vindicated?

if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent,

But I have a mind as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know all these things?

Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?

In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

“My eyes have seen all this, my ears have heard and understood it.

You, however, smear me with lies; you are worthless physicians, all of you!