JOB 7

« Job 6 | Job 7 | Job 8 »

Job Continues: My Life Has No Hope7:1

“Has not man a hard service on earth,

and are not his days like the days of a hired hand? 2

Like a slave who longs for the shadow,

and like a hired hand who looks for his wages, 3

so I am allotted months of emptiness,

and nights of misery are apportioned to me. 4

When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’

But the night is long,

and I am full of tossing till the dawn. 5

My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;

my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh. 6

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle

and come to their end without hope.
7

“Remember that my life is a breath;

my eye will never again see good. 8

The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;

while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone. 9

As the cloud fades and vanishes,

so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up; 10

he returns no more to his house,

nor does his place know him anymore.
11

“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12

Am I the sea, or a sea monster,

that you set a guard over me? 13

When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,

my couch will ease my complaint,’ 14

then you scare me with dreams

and terrify me with visions, 15

so that I would choose strangling

and death rather than my bones. 16

I loathe my life; I would not live forever.

Leave me alone, for my days are a breath. 17

What is man, that you make so much of him,

and that you set your heart on him, 18

visit him every morning

and test him every moment? 19

How long will you not look away from me,

nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit? 20

If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind?

Why have you made me your mark?

Why have I become a burden to you? 21

Why do you not pardon my transgression

and take away my iniquity?

For now I shall lie in the earth;

you will seek me, but I shall not be.”

JOB 8

« Job 7 | Job 8 | Job 9 »

Bildad Speaks: Job Should Repent  8:1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:
2

“How long will you say these things,

and the words of your mouth be a great wind? 3

Does God pervert justice?

Or does the Almighty pervert the right? 4

If your children have sinned against him,

he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression. 5

If you will seek God

and plead with the Almighty for mercy, 6

if you are pure and upright,

surely then he will rouse himself for you

and restore your rightful habitation. 7

And though your beginning was small,

your latter days will be very great.
8

“For inquire, please, of bygone ages,

and consider what the fathers have searched out. 9

For we are but of yesterday and know nothing,

for our days on earth are a shadow. 10

Will they not teach you and tell you

and utter words out of their understanding?
11

“Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh?

Can reeds flourish where there is no water? 12

While yet in flower and not cut down,

they wither before any other plant. 13

Such are the paths of all who forget God;

the hope of the godless shall perish. 14

His confidence is severed,

and his trust is a spider’s web. 15

He leans against his house, but it does not stand;

he lays hold of it, but it does not endure. 16

He is a lush plant before the sun,

and his shoots spread over his garden. 17

His roots entwine the stone heap;

he looks upon a house of stones. 18

If he is destroyed from his place,

then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’ 19

Behold, this is the joy of his way,

and out of the soil others will spring.
20

“Behold, God will not reject a blameless man,

nor take the hand of evildoers. 21

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter,

and your lips with shouting. 22

Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,

and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

PROVERBS 5

« Proverbs 4 | Proverbs 5 | Proverbs 6 »

Warning Against Adultery5:1

My son, be attentive to my wisdom;

incline your ear to my understanding, 2

that you may keep discretion,

and your lips may guard knowledge. 3

For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,

and her speech is smoother than oil, 4

but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,

sharp as a two-edged sword. 5

Her feet go down to death;

her steps follow the path to Sheol; 6

she does not ponder the path of life;

her ways wander, and she does not know it.
7

And now, O sons, listen to me,

and do not depart from the words of my mouth. 8

Keep your way far from her,

and do not go near the door of her house, 9

lest you give your honor to others

and your years to the merciless, 10

lest strangers take their fill of your strength,

and your labors go to the house of a foreigner, 11

and at the end of your life you groan,

when your flesh and body are consumed, 12

and you say, “How I hated discipline,

and my heart despised reproof! 13

I did not listen to the voice of my teachers

or incline my ear to my instructors. 14

I am at the brink of utter ruin

in the assembled congregation.”
15

Drink water from your own cistern,

flowing water from your own well. 16

Should your springs be scattered abroad,

streams of water in the streets? 17

Let them be for yourself alone,

and not for strangers with you. 18

Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth, 19

a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;

be intoxicated always in her love. 20

Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman

and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? 21

For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord,

and he ponders all his paths. 22

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,

and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. 23

He dies for lack of discipline,

and because of his great folly he is led astray.

LUKE 14

« Luke 13 | Luke 14 | Luke 15 »

Healing of a Man on the Sabbath  14:1 One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. 2 And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4 But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 5 And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” 6 And they could not reply to these things. The Parable of the Wedding Feast7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” The Parable of the Great Banquet12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
    15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’” The Cost of Discipleship25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt Without Taste Is Worthless34 “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? 35 It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”