Millennia of translating Scripture have not diminished the impact and freshness that a new translation can communicate. Unfamiliar words can cause us to pause and take note. The powerful images and sheer emotion found in the lament of Job 31 can surely stop us in our tracks and cause us to listen and talk (again) to our Creator and Savior.—Editors.
cut a covenant with my eyes: why, then, should I gaze upon a young girl?
(What is the portion of God from above, and the inheritance of the Almighty from on high?
Is it not calamity for the iniquitous, and disaster or the workers of iniquity?)
Doesn’t He see all my ways, and count all my steps?
If I have walked with vanity, and my foot has hastened toward deceit,
Let Him weigh me in the balances of righteousness and God will know my integrity.
If my step has deviated from the way, if my heart walked after my eye,
Or if any spot has cleaved to my hands,
Then let me sow and another eat, and let my
descendants be uprooted.
If my heart had been deceived by a woman, or I had lain in wait at the door of my neighbor,
Let my wife grind for another, and let others kneel down on her.
For that would be wickedness, iniquity for the judges;
For that would be a fire that consumes unto destruction,
And all my goods would be uprooted.
If I had despised the judgment of my manservant or maidservant when they brought a complaint against me,
Then what would I do when God arises?
And when He calls me to account, what would I answer Him? (Did not the One who made me in the belly make him, And the same One establish us in the womb?)
If I held the poor back from delight,
Or made the eyes of the widow fade;
Or ate from a morsel alone,
And an orphan didn’t eat of it
(Because from my youth he grew up with me
As with a father, and from the womb of my mother, I have guided her);
If I have seen one perishing without clothes
Or there be no covering to the poor,
And if his loins have not blessed me
When he was warmed from the fleece of my sheep;
Or if I have lifted my hand against the orphan
When I saw my help in the gate—
Then let my shoulder fall from the blade
And my arm be broken at the bone!
(For I feared God’s destruction;
His majesty I couldn’t endure.)
If I have made gold my trust,
Or I called fine gold my security;
If I rejoiced because my wealth was great,
Or because my hand has found much;
If I looked at the sun that shone
Or the moon moving in splendor
And my heart was secretly enticed
And my mouth kissed my hand—
This also would have been iniquity for the judges,
Because I would have denied the Lord above.
Have I rejoiced at the ruin of the one who hated me
Or exulted when evil found him?
(And I have not sinned with my mouth
By asking a curse against his soul.)
Did not the men of my tent say,
“Who from his meat has not been satisfied?”
The stranger has not slept outside;
I have opened my door to the wayfarer.
Have I covered my transgression like Adam
And hid in my heart my iniquity;
Because I feared the great multitude,
And the dread of families terrified me
And so I kept silent and would not go out the door?
Oh, that someone would hear me!
Behold, my mark; let the Almighty answer me,
And my accuser write a book;
For would I not carry it upon my shoulder
And bind it as a wreath on me?
I would declare the number of my steps to him;
I would approach him like a prince.
If my land cried out against me,
And its furrows wept together,
If I have eaten its yield without payment,
And have made the life of its masters to expire,
Let thorns come forth instead of wheat,
And weeds instead of barley.
The words of Job have ended.
____________
