Job31

¹“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman.

²For what is our lot from God above, our heritage from the Almighty on high?

³Is it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong?

⁴Does he not see my ways and count my every step?

⁵“If I have walked with falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit—

⁶let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless—

⁷if my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has been led by my eyes, or if my hands have been defiled,

⁸then may others eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted.

⁹“If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my neighbor’s door,

¹⁰then may my wife grind another man’s grain, and may other men sleep with her.

¹¹For that would have been wicked, a sin to be judged.

¹²It is a fire that burns to Destruction; it would have uprooted my harvest.

¹³“If I have denied justice to any of my servants, whether male or female, when they had a grievance against me,

¹⁴what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account?

¹⁵Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?

¹⁶“If I have denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary,

¹⁷if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless—

¹⁸but from my youth I reared them as a father would, and from my birth I guided the widow—

¹⁹if I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing, or the needy without garments,

²⁰and their hearts did not bless me for warming them with the fleece from my sheep,

²¹if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, knowing that I had influence in court,

²²then let my arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint.

²³For I dreaded destruction from God, and for fear of his splendor I could not do such things.

²⁴“If I have put my trust in gold or said to pure gold, ‘You are my security,’

²⁵if I have rejoiced over my great wealth, the fortune my hands had gained,

²⁶if I have regarded the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor,

²⁷so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage,

²⁸then these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.

²⁹“If I have rejoiced at my enemy’s misfortune or gloated over the trouble that came to him—

³⁰I have not allowed my mouth to sin by invoking a curse against their life—

³¹if those of my household have never said, ‘Who has not been filled with Job’s meat?’—

³²but no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveler—

³³if I have concealed my sin as people do, by hiding my guilt in my heart

³⁴because I so feared the crowd and so dreaded the contempt of the clans that I kept silent and would not go outside—

³⁵(“Oh, that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defense—let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing.

³⁶Surely I would wear it on my shoulder, I would put it on like a crown.

³⁷I would give him an account of my every step; I would present it to him as to a ruler.)—

³⁸“if my land cries out against me and all its furrows are wet with tears,

³⁹if I have devoured its yield without payment or broken the spirit of its tenants,

⁴⁰then let briers come up instead of wheat and stinkweed instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.