And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh.”

Then Job’s three friends heard of all this calamity that had come upon him. So they came each one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to console him and comfort him.

Because it did not shut the opening of my mother’s body, Or hide trouble from my eyes.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, And come to an end without hope.

Whose confidence is fragile, And whose trust a spider’s web.

Are Your days as the days of a mortal man, Or Your years as man’s years,

He removes the heart of wisdom from the heads of the earth’s people And makes them wander in a pathless waste.

Water wears away stones; Its torrents wash away the dust of the earth; So You make man’s hope perish.

He sucks the poison of cobras; The viper’s tongue kills him.

This is the wicked man’s portion from God, Even the inheritance decreed to him by God.”

You say, ‘God stores away a man’s wickedness for his sons.’ Let God repay him so that he may know it.

They drive away the donkeys of the orphans; They take the widow’s ox for a pledge.

The path no bird of prey knows, Nor has the falcon’s eye caught sight of it.

The blessing of the one ready to perish came upon me, And I made the widow’s heart sing for joy.

“If my heart has been enticed by a woman, Or I have lain in wait at my neighbor’s doorway,

“Do you think this is according to justice? Do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s’?

“Wait for me a little, and I will show you That there is yet more to be said in God’s behalf.

Now in all the land no women were found so beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers.