Job 33 Cross References - BBE

¹ And now, O Job, give ear to my words, and take note of all I say. ² See, now my mouth is open, my tongue gives out words. ³ My heart is overflowing with knowledge, my lips say what is true. ⁴ The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Ruler of all gives me life. ⁵ If you are able, give me an answer; put your cause in order, and come forward. ⁶ See, I am the same as you are in the eyes of God; I was cut off from the same bit of wet earth. ⁷ Fear of me will not overcome you, and my hand will not be hard on you. ⁸ But you said in my hearing, and your voice came to my ears: ⁹ I am clean, without sin; I am washed, and there is no evil in me: ¹⁰ See, he is looking for something against me; in his eyes I am as one of his haters; ¹¹ He puts chains on my feet; he is watching all my ways. ¹² Truly, in saying this you are wrong; for God is greater than man. ¹³ Why do you put forward your cause against him, saying, He gives no answer to any of my words? ¹⁴ For God gives his word in one way, even in two, and man is not conscious of it: ¹⁵ In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep comes on men, while they take their rest on their beds; ¹⁶ Then he makes his secrets clear to men, so that they are full of fear at what they see; ¹⁷ In order that man may be turned from his evil works, and that pride may be taken away from him; ¹⁸ To keep back his soul from the underworld, and his life from destruction. ¹⁹ Pain is sent on him as a punishment, while he is on his bed; there is no end to the trouble in his bones; ²⁰ He has no desire for food, and his soul is turned away from delicate meat; ²¹ His flesh is so wasted away, that it may not be seen, and his bones (UNTRANSLATED TEXT) . ²² And his soul comes near to the underworld, and his life to the angels of death. ²³ If now there may be an angel sent to him, one of the thousands which there are to be between him and God, and to make clear to man what is right for him; ²⁴ And if he has mercy on him, and says, Let him not go down to the underworld, I have given the price for his life: ²⁵ Then his flesh becomes young again, and he comes back to the days of his early strength; ²⁶ He makes his prayer to God, and he has mercy on him; he sees God's face with cries of joy; he gives news of his righteousness to men; ²⁷ He makes a song, saying, I did wrong, turning from the straight way, but he did not give me the reward of my sin. ²⁸ He kept my soul from the underworld, and my life sees the light in full measure. ²⁹ Truly, God does all these things to man, twice and three times, ³⁰ Keeping back his soul from the underworld, so that he may see the light of life. ³¹ Take note O Job, give ear to me; keep quiet, while I say what is in my mind. ³² If you have anything to say, give me an answer; for it is my desire that you may be judged free from sin. ³³ If not, give attention to me, and keep quiet, and I will give you wisdom.

⁶ Give ear to the argument of my mouth, and take note of the words of my lips.

² Give ear, you wise, to my words; and you who have knowledge, give attention to me;

¹ Alamoth. To the chief music-maker. Of the sons of Korah. A Psalm. Give attention to this, all you peoples; let your ears be open, all you who are living in the world. ² High and low together, the poor, and those who have wealth. ³ From my mouth will come words of wisdom; and in the thoughts of my heart will be knowledge.

⁹ And he said to them, Whoever has ears, let him give ear.

¹ Then, opening his mouth, and cursing the day of his birth,

³⁰ For I did not let my mouth give way to sin, in putting a curse on his life;

² Opening my mouth I will give out a story, even the dark sayings of old times;

² And with these words he gave them teaching, saying,

²⁸ Now then, let your eyes be turned to me, for truly I will not say what is false to your face.

² Will a wise man make answer with knowledge of no value, or will he give birth to the east wind?

⁴ Truly, there is no deceit in my lips, and my tongue does not say what is false.

³ I will get my knowledge from far, and I will give righteousness to my Maker. ⁴ For truly my words are not false; one who has all knowledge is talking with you.

² Who is this who makes the purpose of God dark by words without knowledge?

³⁰ The mouth of the good man says words of wisdom; the talk of his tongue is of righteousness. ³¹ The law of his God is in his heart; he will never make a false step.

⁷ For good faith goes out of my mouth, and false lips are disgusting to me. ⁸ All the words of my mouth are righteousness; there is nothing false or twisted in them.

² Knowledge is dropping from the tongue of the wise; but from the mouth of the foolish comes a stream of foolish words.

⁷ The lips of the wise keep knowledge, but the heart of the foolish man is not right.

¹⁵ There is gold and a store of corals: but the lips of knowledge are a jewel of great price.

³ For our witness does not come from error or from an unclean heart or from deceit: ⁴ But even as the good news was given to us by the approval of God, so we give it out; not as pleasing men, but God by whom our hearts are tested.

⁷ And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life: and man became a living soul.

³ What profit is it to you to be cruel, to give up the work of your hands, looking kindly on the design of evil-doers?

¹² You have been kind to me, and your grace has been with me, and your care has kept my spirit safe.

³ For all my breath is still in me, and the spirit of God is my life;

⁸ But truly it is the spirit in man, even the breath of the Ruler of all, which gives them knowledge.

⁶ By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the army of heaven by the breath of his mouth.

² For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

⁴⁵ And so it is said, The first man Adam was a living soul. The last Adam is a life-giving spirit.

¹⁸ See now, I have put my cause in order, and I am certain that I will be seen to be right.

⁴ I would put my cause in order before him, and my mouth would be full of arguments. ⁵ I would see what his answers would be, and have knowledge of what he would say to me.

¹ So these three men gave no more answers to Job, because he seemed to himself to be right.

¹² I was taking note; and truly not one of you was able to make clear Job's error, or to give an answer to his words.

¹⁴ I will not put forward words like these, or make use of your sayings in answer to him.

³² If you have anything to say, give me an answer; for it is my desire that you may be judged free from sin. ³³ If not, give attention to me, and keep quiet, and I will give you wisdom.

²¹ These things have you done, and I said nothing; it seemed to you that I was such a one as yourself; but I will make a protest against you, and put them in order before your eyes.

²⁶ But Peter, lifting him up, said, Get up, for I am a man as you are.

¹⁹ With the hard work of your hands you will get your bread till you go back to the earth from which you were taken: for dust you are and to the dust you will go back.

² But Jacob was angry with Rachel, and said, Am I in the place of God, who has kept your body from having fruit?

¹⁶ And he will do the talking for you to the people: he will be to you as a mouth and you will be to him as God.

¹⁹ How much more those living in houses of earth, whose bases are in the dust! They are crushed more quickly than an insect;

³² For he is not a man as I am, that I might give him an answer, that we might come together before a judge. ³³ There is no one to give a decision between us, who might have control over us. ³⁴ Let him take away his rod from me and not send his fear on me: ³⁵ Then I would say what is in my mind without fear of him; for there is no cause of fear in myself.

⁹ O keep in mind that you made me out of earth; and will you send me back again to dust?

³ But I would have talk with the Ruler of all, and my desire is to have an argument with God.

¹² Your wise sayings are only dust, and your strong places are only earth.

²² Even when his wealth is great, he is full of care, for the hand of everyone who is in trouble is turned against him.

³ If only I had knowledge of where he might be seen, so that I might come even to his seat! ⁴ I would put my cause in order before him, and my mouth would be full of arguments.

³⁵ If only God would give ear to me, and the Ruler of all would give me an answer! or if what he has against me had been put in writing!

¹ For we are conscious that if this our tent of flesh is taken down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in heaven.

²⁰ So we are the representatives of Christ, as if God was making a request to you through us: we make our request to you, in the name of Christ, be at peace with God.

³⁴ Let him take away his rod from me and not send his fear on me:

²¹ Take your hand far away from me; and let me not be overcome by fear of you.

⁴ For the weight of your hand was on me day and night; my body became dry like the earth in summer. Selah.

¹⁶ The heat of your wrath has gone over me; I am broken by your cruel punishments.

¹⁴ Then let a full search be made, and let questions be put with care; and if it is true and certain that such a disgusting thing has been done among you;

²³ Because they have done shame in Israel, and have taken their neighbours' wives, and in my name have said false words, which I did not give them orders to say; and I myself am the witness, says the Lord.

¹⁷ For I would be crushed by his storm, my wounds would be increased without cause.

²¹ I have done no wrong; I give no thought to what becomes of me; I have no desire for life.

²³ If death comes suddenly through disease, he makes sport of the fate of those who have done no wrong.

²⁸ I go in fear of all my pains; I am certain that I will not be free from sin in your eyes.

⁷ Though you see that I am not an evil-doer; and there is no one who is able to take a man out of your hands?

⁴ You may say, My way is clean, and I am free from sin in your eyes.

²³ What is the number of my evil-doings and my sins? give me knowledge of them.

¹⁷ Though my hands have done no violent acts, and my prayer is clean.

⁸ The upright are surprised at this, and he who has done no wrong is troubled because of the evil-doers.

¹¹ My feet have gone in his steps; I have kept in his way, without turning to one side or to the other. ¹² I have never gone against the orders of his lips; the words of his mouth have been stored up in my heart.

⁵ Let it be far from me! I will certainly not say that you are right! I will come to death before I give up my righteousness. ⁶ I will keep it safe, and will not let it go: my heart has nothing to say against any part of my life.

¹⁴ I put on righteousness as my clothing, and was full of it; right decisions were to me a robe and a head-dress.

³⁵ And still you said, I have done no wrong; truly, his wrath is turned away from me. See, I will take up the cause against you, because you say, I have done no wrong.

³⁰ If I am washed with snow water, and make my hands clean with soap; ³¹ Then you will have me pushed into the dust, so that I will seem disgusting to my very clothing.

¹⁵ That, if I was an evil-doer, the curse would come on me; and if I was upright, my head would not be lifted up, being full of shame and overcome with trouble. ¹⁶ And that if there was cause for pride, you would go after me like a lion; and again put out your wonders against me: ¹⁷ That you would send new witnesses against me, increasing your wrath against me, and letting loose new armies on me.

²⁴ Why is your face veiled from me, as if I was numbered among your haters? ²⁵ Will you be hard on a leaf in flight before the wind? will you make a dry stem go more quickly on its way?

¹⁶ For now my steps are numbered by you, and my sin is not overlooked.

⁹ I am broken by his wrath, and his hate has gone after me; he has made his teeth sharp against me: my haters are looking on me with cruel eyes;

¹¹ His wrath is burning against me, and I am to him as one of his haters.

²¹ You have become cruel to me; the strength of your hand is hard on me.

⁵ For Job has said, I am upright, and it is God who has taken away my right;

²⁷ And you put chains on my feet, watching all my ways, and making a limit for my steps;

⁴ Does he not see my ways, and are not my steps all numbered?

¹⁸ His feet were fixed in chains; his neck was put in iron bands;

² And Pashhur gave blows to Jeremiah and had his feet chained in a framework of wood in the higher doorway of Benjamin, which was in the house of the Lord.

³⁵ And all the people of the earth are as nothing: he does his pleasure in the army of heaven and among the people of the earth: and no one is able to keep back his hand, or say to him, What are you doing?

²⁴ And he, having such orders, put them into the inner prison with chains on their feet.

²² In all this Job did no sin, and did not say that God's acts were foolish.

⁴ He is wise in heart and great in strength: who ever made his face hard against him, and any good came of it?

¹⁴ See, these are only the outskirts of his ways; and how small is that which comes to our ears about him! But the thunder of his acts of power is outside all knowledge.

¹⁷ I will give my answer; I will put forward my knowledge:

¹⁰ Now then, you wise, take note; you men of knowledge, give ear to me. Let it be far from God to do evil, and from the Ruler of all to do wrong. ¹¹ For he gives to every man the reward of his work, and sees that he gets the fruit of his ways. ¹² Truly, God does not do evil, and the Ruler of all is not a false judge.

¹⁷ How may a hater of right be a ruler? and will you say that the upright Ruler of all is evil? ¹⁸ He who says to a king, You are an evil-doer; and to rulers, You are sinners; ¹⁹ Who has no respect for rulers, and who gives no more attention to those who have wealth than to the poor, for they are all the work of his hands.

²³ For he does not give man a fixed time to come before him to be judged.

² Does it seem to you to be right, and righteousness before God, to say,

⁴ I will make answer to you and to your friends:

⁵ Truly, God gives up the hard-hearted, and will not give life to the sinner.

²² Truly God is lifted up in strength; who is a ruler like him? ²³ Who ever gave orders to him, or said to him, You have done wrong?

² Will he who is protesting give teaching to the Ruler of all? Let him who has arguments to put forward against God give an answer.

⁸ Will you even make my right of no value? will you say that I am wrong in order to make clear that you are right? ⁹ Have you an arm like God? have you a voice of thunder like his?

²⁰ There is no man on earth of such righteousness that he does good and is free from sin all his days.

⁶ O Israel, am I not able to do with you as this potter does? says the Lord. See, like earth in the potter's hand are you in my hands, O Israel.

²⁵ But you say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Give ear, now, O children of Israel; is my way not equal? are not your ways unequal?

¹⁹ But you will say to me, Why does he still make us responsible? who is able to go against his purpose? ²⁰ But, O man, who are you, to make answer against God? May the thing which is made say to him who made it, Why did you make me so? ²¹ Or has not the potter the right to make out of one part of his earth a vessel for honour, and out of another a vessel for shame?

²⁹ The secret things are the Lord our God's: but the things which have been made clear are ours and our children's for ever, so that we may do all the words of this law.

¹⁴ How much less may I give an answer to him, using the right words in argument with him?

²⁵ Because his hand is stretched out against God, and his heart is lifted up against the Ruler of all, ²⁶ Running against him like a man of war, covered by his thick breastplate; even like a king ready for the fight,

¹¹ Once has God said, twice has it come to my ears, that power is God's:

⁹ Cursed is he who has an argument with his Maker, the pot which has an argument with the Potter! Will the wet earth say to him who is working with it, What are you doing, that your work has nothing by which it may be gripped?

¹⁰ Making clear from the first what is to come, and from past times the things which have not so far come about; saying, My purpose is fixed, and I will do all my pleasure;

²⁴ I have put a net for you, and you have been taken, O Babylon, without your knowledge: you have been uncovered and taken because you were fighting against the Lord.

¹⁴ Will your heart be high or your hands strong in the days when I take you in hand? I the Lord have said it and will do it.

¹⁵ Have I not the right to do as seems good to me in my house? or is your eye evil, because I am good?

⁷ And he said to them, It is not for you to have knowledge of the time and the order of events which the Father has kept in his control.

³⁹ But if it is of God, you will not be able to overcome them, and you are in danger of fighting against God.

⁴ And he went down on the earth, and a voice said to him, Saul, Saul, why are you attacking me so cruelly? ⁵ And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are attacking:

³⁴ Who has knowledge of the mind of the Lord? or who has taken part in his purposes?

²² Or may we be the cause of envy to the Lord? are we stronger than he?

¹⁰ And the word of the Lord came to Manasseh and his people, but they gave no attention.

²⁹ Truly, God does all these things to man, twice and three times,

⁵ I have said once, and even twice, what was in my mind, but I will not do so again.

²⁴ Because your ears were shut to my voice; no one gave attention to my out-stretched hand;

²⁹ For they were haters of knowledge, and did not give their hearts to the fear of the Lord:

⁹ And he said, Go, and say to this people, You will go on hearing, but learning nothing; you will go on seeing, but without getting wiser.

¹⁴ And for them the words of Isaiah have come true, Though you give ear, you will not get knowledge; and seeing, you will see, but the sense will not be clear to you:

¹⁷ And Jesus, hearing it, said to them, Why are you reasoning among yourselves because you have no bread? do you still not see, and is it still not clear to you? are your hearts so hard? ¹⁸ Having eyes, do you not see? and having ears, have you no hearing? and have you no memory?

²⁵ And he said, O foolish men! how slow you are to give belief to what the prophets have said.

¹⁹ And this is the test by which men are judged: the light has come into the world and men have more love for the dark than for the light, because their acts are evil.

¹² Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep came on Abram, and a dark cloud of fear.

³ But God came to Abimelech in a dream in the night, and said to him, Truly you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is a man's wife.

²⁴ Then God came to Laban in a dream by night, and said to him, Take care that you say nothing good or bad to Jacob.

⁶ And he said, Now give ear to my words: if there is a prophet among you I will give him knowledge of myself in a vision and will let my words come to him in a dream.

¹³ In troubled thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep comes on men,

²⁸ If a prophet has a dream, let him give out his dream; and he who has my word, let him give out my word in good faith. What has the dry stem to do with the grain? says the Lord.

⁵ I saw a dream which was a cause of great fear to me; I was troubled by the images of my mind on my bed, and by the visions of my head.

¹⁸ Now while he was talking to me, I went into a deep sleep with my face to the earth: but touching me, he put me on my feet where I had been.

¹ In times past the word of God came to our fathers through the prophets, in different parts and in different ways;

²⁷ For you, O Lord of armies, the God of Israel, have clearly said to your servant, I will make you the head of a family of kings: and so it has come into your servant's heart to make this prayer to you.

³⁸ And because of all this we are making an agreement in good faith, and putting it in writing; and our rulers, our Levites, and our priests are putting their names to it.

¹⁰ Their ear is open to his teaching, and he gives them orders so that their hearts may be turned from evil.

¹⁵ He makes the wrong done to the poor the way of their salvation, opening their ears by their trouble.

⁶ You had no desire for offerings of beasts or fruits of the earth; ears you made for me: for burned offerings and sin offerings you made no request.

¹⁰ Make the hearts of this people fat, and let their ears be stopped, and their eyes shut; for fear that they may see with their eyes, and be hearing with their ears, and their heart may become wise, and they may be turned to me and made well.

⁸ Truly you had no word of them, no knowledge of them; no news of them in the past had come to your ears; because I saw how false was your behaviour, and that your heart was turned against me from your earliest days.

⁵ And I have not put myself against him, or let my heart be turned back from him.

⁴⁵ Then he made the holy Writings clear to their minds.

¹⁴ And a certain woman named Lydia, a trader in purple cloth of the town of Thyatira, and a God-fearing woman, gave ear to us: whose heart the Lord made open to give attention to the things which Paul was saying.

²⁸ So when I have done this, and have given them this fruit of love, I will go on by you into Spain.

⁶ And God said to him in the dream, I see that you have done this with an upright heart, and I have kept you from sinning against me: for this reason I did not let you come near her.

¹⁶ Who gave you manna for your food in the waste land, a food which your fathers had never seen; so that your pride might be broken and your hearts tested for your good in the end;

²⁵ But Hezekiah did not do as had been done to him; for his heart was lifted up in pride; and so wrath came on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.

¹¹ My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the desires of my heart.

¹¹ The high looks of man will be put to shame, and the pride of men will be made low, and only the Lord will be lifted up in that day.

⁹ It was the purpose of the Lord of armies to put pride to shame, to make sport of the glory of those who are honoured in the earth.

³⁰ The king made answer and said, Is this not great Babylon, which I have made for the living-place of kings, by the strength of my power and for the glory of my honour? ³¹ While the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice came down from heaven, saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is said: The kingdom has gone from you: ³² And they will send you out from among men, to be with the beasts of the field; they will give you grass for your food like the oxen, and seven times will go by you, till you are certain that the Most High is ruler in the kingdom of men, and gives it to any man at his pleasure. ³³ That very hour the order about Nebuchadnezzar was put into effect: and he was sent out from among men, and had grass for his food like the oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hair became long as eagles' feathers and his nails like those of birds. ³⁴ And at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifting up my eyes to heaven, got back my reason, and, blessing the Most High, I gave praise and honour to him who is living for ever, whose rule is an eternal rule and whose kingdom goes on from generation to generation. ³⁵ And all the people of the earth are as nothing: he does his pleasure in the army of heaven and among the people of the earth: and no one is able to keep back his hand, or say to him, What are you doing? ³⁶ At the same time my reason came back to me; and for the glory of my kingdom, my honour and my great name came back to me; and my wise men and my lords were turned to me again; and I was made safe in my kingdom and had more power than before. ³⁷ Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, give worship and praise and honour to the King of heaven; for all his works are true and his ways are right: and those who go in pride he is able to make low.

⁶ For this cause I will put thorns in her road, building up a wall round her so that she may not go on her way.

¹⁹ And while he was on the judge's seat, his wife sent to him, saying, Have nothing to do with that upright man, for I have had much trouble this day in a dream because of him.

² And made a request for letters from him to the Synagogues of Damascus, so that if there were any of the Way there, men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. ³ And while he was journeying, he came near Damascus; and suddenly he saw a light from heaven shining round him; ⁴ And he went down on the earth, and a voice said to him, Saul, Saul, why are you attacking me so cruelly? ⁵ And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are attacking: ⁶ But get up, and go into the town, and it will be made clear to you what you have to do.

⁷ And because the revelations were so very great, in order that I might not be overmuch lifted up, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, one sent from Satan to give me pain.

¹⁰ Make yourselves low in the eyes of the Lord and you will be lifted up by him.

²² He has no hope of coming safe out of the dark, and his fate will be the sword;

²² And his soul comes near to the underworld, and his life to the angels of death.

²⁴ And if he has mercy on him, and says, Let him not go down to the underworld, I have given the price for his life:

²⁸ He kept my soul from the underworld, and my life sees the light in full measure.

³⁰ Keeping back his soul from the underworld, so that he may see the light of life.

²⁷ And the keeper, coming out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, took his sword and was about to put himself to death, fearing that the prisoners had got away. ²⁸ But Paul said in a loud voice, Do yourself no damage, for we are all here. ²⁹ And he sent for lights and came rushing in and, shaking with fear, went down on his face before Paul and Silas, ³⁰ And took them out and said, Sirs, what have I to do to get salvation? ³¹ And they said, Have faith in the Lord Jesus, and you and your family will have salvation. ³² And they gave the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. ³³ And that same hour of the night, he took them, and when he had given attention to their wounds, he and all his family had baptism straight away.

⁴ Or is it nothing to you that God had pity on you, waiting and putting up with you for so long, not seeing that in his pity God's desire is to give you a change of heart?

⁹ The Lord is not slow in keeping his word, as he seems to some, but he is waiting in mercy for you, not desiring the destruction of any, but that all may be turned from their evil ways.

¹⁵ And be certain that the long waiting of the Lord is for salvation; even as our brother Paul has said in his letters to you, from the wisdom which was given to him;

⁵ Keep in mind this thought, that as a son is trained by his father, so you have been trained by the Lord your God.

¹⁰ Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in prison, burning with wrath against him because of this thing. And at the same time Asa was cruel to some of the people.

¹² In the thirty-ninth year of his rule, Asa had a very bad disease of the feet; but he did not go to the Lord for help in his disease, but to medical men.

¹⁷ Truly, that man is happy who has training from the hand of God: so do not let your heart be shut to the teaching of the Ruler of all. ¹⁸ For after his punishment he gives comfort, and after wounding, his hands make you well.

⁴ When I go to my bed, I say, When will it be time to get up? but the night is long, and I am turning from side to side till morning light.

¹¹ His bones are full of young strength, but it will go down with him into the dust.

¹⁷ The flesh is gone from my bones, and they give me no rest; there is no end to my pains.

¹ A Psalm. Of David. To keep in memory. O Lord, be not bitter with me in your wrath; let not your hand be on me in the heat of your passion. ² For your arrows have gone into my flesh, and I am crushed under the weight of your hand. ³ My flesh is wasted because of your wrath; and there is no peace in my bones because of my sin. ⁴ For my crimes have gone over my head; they are like a great weight which is more than my strength. ⁵ My wounds are poisoned and evil-smelling, because of my foolish behaviour. ⁶ I am troubled, I am made low; I go weeping all the day. ⁷ For my body is full of burning; all my flesh is unhealthy. ⁸ I am feeble and crushed down; I gave a cry like a lion because of the grief in my heart.

¹² Happy is the man who is guided by you, O Jah, and to whom you give teaching out of your law;

⁶⁷ Before I was in trouble I went out of the way; but now I keep your word.

⁷¹ It is good for me to have been through trouble; so that I might come to the knowledge of your rules.

⁹ So by this will the sin of Jacob be covered, and this is all the fruit of taking away his punishment; when all the stones of the altar are crushed together, so that the wood pillars and the sun-images will not be put up again.

¹² Did the gods of the nations keep safe those on whom my fathers sent destruction, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the town of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivva?

³² But if punishment does come, it is sent by the Lord, so that we may be safe when the world is judged.

¹⁹ To all those who are dear to me, I give sharp words and punishment: then with all your heart have sorrow for your evil ways.

⁶ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and a delight to the eyes, and to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and gave it to her husband.

²⁴ In place of my food I have grief, and cries of sorrow come from me like water.

¹⁷ Foolish men, because of their sins, and because of their wrongdoing, are troubled; ¹⁸ They are disgusted by all food, and they come near to the doors of death.

¹⁹ But I said, How am I to put you among the children, and give you a desired land, a heritage of glory among the armies of the nations? and I said, You are to say to me, My father; and not be turned away from me.

¹¹ So because the poor man is crushed under your feet, and you take taxes from him of grain: you have made for yourselves houses of cut stone, but you will not take your rest in them; the fair vine-gardens planted by your hands will not give you wine.

⁵ My flesh is covered with worms and dust; my skin gets hard and then is cracked again.

²⁸ Though a man comes to nothing like a bit of dead wood, or like a robe which has become food for the worm.

²⁰ You overcome him for ever, and he is gone; his face is changed in death, and you send him away.

²² Only his flesh still has pain, and his soul is sad.

⁸ It has come up as a witness against me, and the wasting of my flesh makes answer to my face.

²⁰ My bones are joined to my skin, and I have got away with my flesh in my teeth.

¹⁵ My throat is dry like a broken vessel; my tongue is fixed to the roof of my mouth, and the dust of death is on my lips. ¹⁶ Dogs have come round me: I am shut in by the band of evil-doers; they made wounds in my hands and feet. ¹⁷ I am able to see all my bones; their looks are fixed on me:

³ When I kept my mouth shut, my bones were wasted, because of my crying all through the day. ⁴ For the weight of your hand was on me day and night; my body became dry like the earth in summer. Selah.

¹¹ By the weight of your wrath against man's sin, the glory of his form is wasted away; truly every man is but a breath. Selah.

³ My days are wasted like smoke, and my bones are burned up as in a fire. ⁴ My heart is broken; it has become dry and dead like grass, so that I give no thought to food. ⁵ Because of the voice of my sorrow, my flesh is wasted to the bone.

¹¹ And you will be full of grief at the end of your life, when your flesh and your body are wasted;

²³ For the Lord will go through the land, sending death on the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the two sides and the top of the door, the Lord will go over your door and will not let death come in for your destruction.

⁶ The Lord is the giver of death and life: sending men down to the underworld and lifting them up.

¹⁶ And when the hand of the angel was stretched out in the direction of Jerusalem, for its destruction, the Lord had regret for the evil, and said to the angel who was sending destruction on the people, It is enough; do no more. And the angel of the Lord was by the grain-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

⁷ O, keep in mind that my life is wind: my eye will never again see good.

²¹ A sound of fear is in his ears; in time of peace destruction will come on him:

¹ My spirit is broken, my days are ended, the last resting-place is ready for me.

¹³ If I am waiting for the underworld as my house, if I have made my bed in the dark; ¹⁴ If I say to the earth, You are my father; and to the worm, My mother and my sister; ¹⁵ Where then is my hope? and who will see my desire? ¹⁶ Will they go down with me into the underworld? Will we go down together into the dust?

⁴ As for the works of men, by the word of your lips I have kept myself from the ways of the violent.

³ O Lord, you have made my soul come again from the underworld: you have given me life and kept me from going down among the dead.

³ For my soul is full of evils, and my life has come near to the underworld. ⁴ I am numbered among those who go down into the earth; I have become like a man for whom there is no help: ⁵ My soul is among the dead, like those in the underworld, to whom you give no more thought; for they are cut off from your care.

¹⁰ I said, In the quiet of my days I am going down into the underworld: the rest of my years are being taken away from me.

²³ And straight away the angel of the Lord sent a disease on him, because he did not give the glory to God: and his flesh was wasted away by worms, and so he came to his end.

¹⁰ And do not say evil things against the Lord, as some of them did, and destruction overtook them.

¹¹ They have over them as king the angel of the great deep: his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek language Apollyon.

¹ Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, (OMITTED TEXT) I took you out of Egypt, guiding you into the land which I gave by an oath to your fathers; and I said, My agreement with you will never be broken by me:

¹⁵ And the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them by his servants, sending early and frequently, because he had pity on his people and on his living-place; ¹⁶ But they put shame on the servants of God, making sport of his words and laughing at his prophets, till the wrath of God was moved against his people, till there was no help.

³³ But still, you have been in the right in everything which has come on us; you have been true to us, but we have done evil:

³ If a man was desiring to go to law with him, he would not be able to give him an answer to one out of a thousand questions.

⁶ And would make clear to you the secrets of wisdom, and the wonders of his purpose!

¹⁰ Now then, you wise, take note; you men of knowledge, give ear to me. Let it be far from God to do evil, and from the Ruler of all to do wrong.

¹² Truly, God does not do evil, and the Ruler of all is not a false judge.

³² (UNTRANSLATED TEXT)

¹⁴ How much less when you say that you do not see him; that the cause is before him, and you are waiting for him.

³ I will get my knowledge from far, and I will give righteousness to my Maker.

⁸ And if they have been prisoned in chains, and taken in cords of trouble, ⁹ Then he makes clear to them what they have done, even their evil works in which they have taken pride. ¹⁰ Their ear is open to his teaching, and he gives them orders so that their hearts may be turned from evil. ¹¹ If they give ear to his voice, and do his word, then he gives them long life, and years full of pleasure. ¹² But if not, they come to their end, and give up their breath without knowledge. ¹³ Those who have no fear of God keep wrath stored up in their hearts; they give no cry for help when they are made prisoners.

²³ There is no searching out of the Ruler of all: his strength and his judging are great; he is full of righteousness, doing no wrong.

⁷⁵ I have seen, O Lord, that your decisions are right, and that in unchanging faith you have sent trouble on me.

²⁸ For which my soul is still searching, but I have it not; one man among a thousand have I seen; but a woman among all these I have not seen.

¹ The spirit of the Lord is on me, because I am marked out by him to give good news to the poor; he has sent me to make the broken-hearted well, to say that the prisoners will be made free, and that those in chains will see the light again; ² To give knowledge that the year of the Lord's good pleasure has come, and the day of punishment from our God; to give comfort to all who are sad; ³ To give them a fair head-dress in place of dust, the oil of joy in place of the clothing of grief, praise in place of sorrow; so that they may be named trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, and so that he may have glory.

²² It is through the Lord's love that we have not come to destruction, because his mercies have no limit. ²³ They are new every morning; great is your good faith.

³² For though he sends grief, still he will have pity in the full measure of his love.

³⁹ What protest may a living man make, even a man about the punishment of his sin? ⁴⁰ Let us make search and put our ways to the test, turning again to the Lord; ⁴¹ Lifting up our hearts with our hands to God in the heavens.

²⁵ But you say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Give ear, now, O children of Israel; is my way not equal? are not your ways unequal? ²⁶ When the upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, death will overtake him; in the evil which he has done death will overtake him. ²⁷ Again, when the evil-doer, turning away from the evil he has done, does what is ordered and right, he will have life for his soul. ²⁸ Because he had fear and was turned away from all the wrong which he had done, life will certainly be his, death will not be his fate.

¹⁴ So the Lord has been watching over this evil and has made it come on us: for the Lord our God is upright in all his acts which he has done, and we have not given ear to his voice.

¹³ Then Haggai, whom the Lord had sent to give his words to the people, said, I am with you, says the Lord.

⁷ For it is right for the priest's lips to keep knowledge, and for men to be waiting for the law from his mouth: for he is the servant sent from the Lord of armies.

¹ See, I am sending my servant, and he will make ready the way before me; and the Lord, whom you are looking for, will suddenly come to his Temple; and the angel of the agreement, in whom you have delight, see, he is coming, says the Lord of armies.

³⁰ And Philip, running up to him, saw that he was reading Isaiah the prophet, and said to him, Is the sense of what you are reading clear to you?

¹³ But I say to you, Gentiles, in so far as I am the Apostle of the Gentiles, I make much of my position:

³⁰ For this cause a number of you are feeble and ill, and a number are dead. ³¹ But if we were true judges of ourselves, punishment would not come on us. ³² But if punishment does come, it is sent by the Lord, so that we may be safe when the world is judged.

⁵ And you have not kept in mind the word which says to you as to sons, My son, do not make little of the Lord's punishment, and do not give up hope when you are judged by him; ⁶ For the Lord sends punishment on his loved ones; everyone whom he takes as his son has experience of his rod. ⁷ It is for your training that you undergo these things; God is acting to you as a father does to his sons; for what son does not have punishment from his father? ⁸ But if you have not that punishment of which we all have our part, then you are not true sons, but children of shame. ⁹ And again, if the fathers of our flesh gave us punishment and had our respect, how much more will we be under the authority of the Father of spirits, and have life? ¹⁰ For they truly gave us punishment for a short time, as it seemed good to them; but he does it for our profit, so that we may become holy as he is. ¹¹ At the time all punishment seems to be pain and not joy: but after, those who have been trained by it get from it the peace-giving fruit of righteousness. ¹² For this cause let the hands which are hanging down be lifted up, and let the feeble knees be made strong,

¹⁹ And he said, I will make all the light of my being come before you, and will make clear to you what I am; I will be kind to those to whom I will be kind, and have mercy on those on whom I will have mercy.

⁶ And the Lord went past before his eyes, saying, The Lord, the Lord, a God full of pity and grace, slow to wrath and great in mercy and faith; ⁷ Having mercy on thousands, overlooking evil and wrongdoing and sin; he will not let wrongdoers go free, but will send punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, and on their children's children to the third and fourth generation.

²¹ Put yourself now in a right relation with him and be at peace: so will you do well in your undertakings.

¹⁸ To keep back his soul from the underworld, and his life from destruction.

¹⁰ Their ear is open to his teaching, and he gives them orders so that their hearts may be turned from evil. ¹¹ If they give ear to his voice, and do his word, then he gives them long life, and years full of pleasure.

¹⁸ (UNTRANSLATED TEXT)

⁴ Our fathers had faith in you: they had faith and you were their saviour.

⁹ What profit is there in my blood if I go down into the underworld? will the dust give you praise, or be a witness to your help? ¹⁰ Give ear to me, O Lord, and have mercy on me: Lord, be my helper. ¹¹ By you my sorrow is turned into dancing; you have taken away my clothing of grief, and given me robes of joy; ¹² So that my glory may make songs of praise to you and not be quiet. O Lord my God, I will give you praise for ever.

² He took me up out of a deep waste place, out of the soft and sticky earth; he put my feet on a rock, and made my steps certain.

⁷ Truly, no man may get back his soul for a price, or give to God the payment for himself; ⁸ Because it takes a great price to keep his soul from death, and man is not able to give it.

³ Be my strong Rock, the strong place of my salvation; for you are my Rock, and my safe place.

⁵ You are good, O Lord, and full of forgiveness; your mercy is great to all who make their cry to you.

¹³ For your mercy to me is great; you have taken my soul up from the deep places of the underworld.

¹⁵ But you, O Lord, are a God full of pity and forgiveness, slow to get angry, great in mercy and wisdom.

¹⁷ See, in place of peace my soul had bitter sorrow. but you have kept back my soul from the underworld; for you have put all my sins out of your memory. ¹⁸ For the underworld is not able to give you praise, death gives you no honour: for those who go down into the underworld there is no hope in your mercy. ¹⁹ The living, the living man, he will give you praise, as I do this day: the father will give the story of your mercy to his children.

²⁰ Is Ephraim my dear son? is he the child of my delight? for whenever I say things against him, I still keep him in my memory: so my heart is troubled for him; I will certainly have mercy on him, says the Lord.

² Take with you words, and come back to the Lord; say to him, Let there be forgiveness for all wrongdoing, so that we may take what is good, and give in payment the fruit of our lips.

⁴ I will put right their errors; freely will my love be given to them, for my wrath is turned away from him.

¹⁸ Who is a God like you, offering forgiveness for evil-doing and overlooking the sins of the rest of his heritage? he does not keep his wrath for ever, because his delight is in mercy. ¹⁹ He will again have pity on us; he will put our sins under his feet: and you will send all our sins down into the heart of the sea. ²⁰ You will make clear your good faith to Jacob and your mercy to Abraham, as you gave your oath to our fathers from times long past.

¹¹ And as for you, because of the blood of your agreement, I have sent out your prisoners from the deep hole in which there is no water.

²⁸ Even as the Son of man did not come to have servants, but to be a servant, and to give his life for the salvation of men.

²⁴ And they may have righteousness put to their credit, freely, by his grace, through the salvation which is in Christ Jesus: ²⁵ Whom God has put forward as the sign of his mercy, through faith, by his blood, to make clear his righteousness when, in his pity, God let the sins of earlier times go without punishment; ²⁶ And to make clear his righteousness now, so that he might himself be upright, and give righteousness to him who has faith in Jesus.

²⁰ And the law came in addition, to make wrongdoing worse; but where there was much sin, there was much more grace: ²¹ That, as sin had power in death, so grace might have power through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

⁶ Who gave himself as an offering for all; witness of which was to be given at the right time;

¹⁸ Being conscious that you have been made free from that foolish way of life which was your heritage from your fathers, not through a payment of things like silver or gold which come to destruction, ¹⁹ But through holy blood, like that of a clean and unmarked lamb, even the blood of Christ:

⁷ And Moses at his death was a hundred and twenty years old: his eye had not become clouded, or his natural force become feeble.

¹⁰ And now, as you see, the Lord has kept me safe these forty-five years, from the time when the Lord said this to Moses, while Israel was wandering in the waste land: and now I am eighty-five years old. ¹¹ And still, I am as strong today as I was when Moses sent me out: as my strength was then, so is it now, for war and for all the business of life.

¹⁴ Then he went down seven times into the waters of Jordan, as the man of God had said; and his flesh became like the flesh of a little child again, and he was clean.

¹⁶ And after this Job had a hundred and forty years of life, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations.

⁵ He makes your mouth full of good things, so that your strength is made new again like the eagle's.

¹⁵ And I will give her vine-gardens from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will give her answer there as in the days when she was young, and as in the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

²⁵ May the light of the Lord's face be shining on you in grace: ²⁶ May the Lord's approval be resting on you and may he give you peace.

²³ And the Lord will give to every man the reward of his righteousness and his faith: because the Lord gave you into my hands today, and I would not put out my hand against the man who has been marked with the holy oil.

² Then, turning his face to the wall, he made his prayer to the Lord, saying, ³ O Lord, keep in mind how I have been true to you with all my heart, and have done what is good in your eyes. And Hezekiah gave way to bitter weeping. ⁴ Now before Isaiah had gone out of the middle of the town, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ⁵ Go back and say to Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, The Lord, the God of David your father, says, Your prayer has come to my ears, and I have seen your weeping; see, I will make you well: on the third day you will go up to the house of the Lord.

¹² And crying out to the Lord his God in his trouble, he made himself low before the God of his fathers, ¹³ And made prayer to him; and in answer to his prayer God let him come back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh was certain that the Lord was God.

¹⁹ And the prayer which he made to God, and how God gave him an answer, and all his sin and his wrongdoing, and the places where he made high places and put up pillars of wood and images, before he put away his pride, are recorded in the history of the seers.

²⁶ For then you will have delight in the Ruler of all, and your face will be lifted up to God. ²⁷ You will make your prayer to him, and be answered; and you will give effect to your oaths.

¹¹ For he gives to every man the reward of his work, and sees that he gets the fruit of his ways.

²⁸ So that the cry of the poor might come up to him, and the prayer of those in need come to his ears.

⁸ And now, take seven oxen and seven sheep, and go to my servant Job, and give a burned offering for yourselves, and my servant Job will make prayer for you, that I may not send punishment on you; because you have not said what is right about me, as my servant Job has. ⁹ And Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, went and did as the Lord had said. And the Lord gave ear to Job.

⁶ There are numbers who say, Who will do us any good? the light of his face has gone from us. ⁷ Lord, you have put joy in my heart, more than they have when their grain and their wine are increased.

¹ To the chief music-maker on corded instruments, on the Sheminith. A Psalm. Of David. O Lord, do not be bitter with me in your wrath; do not send punishment on me in the heat of your passion. ² Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am wasted away: make me well, for even my bones are troubled. ³ My soul is in bitter trouble; and you, O Lord, how long? ⁴ Come back, O Lord, make my soul free; O give me salvation because of your mercy. ⁵ For in death there is no memory of you; in the underworld who will give you praise? ⁶ The voice of my sorrow is a weariness to me; all the night I make my bed wet with weeping; it is watered by the drops flowing from my eyes. ⁷ My eyes are wasting away with trouble; they are becoming old because of all those who are against me. ⁸ Go from me, all you workers of evil; for the Lord has given ear to the voice of my weeping. ⁹ The Lord has given ear to my request; the Lord has let my prayer come before him.

¹¹ You will make clear to me the way of life; where you are joy is complete; in your right hand there are pleasures for ever and ever.

²⁰ The Lord gives me the reward of my righteousness, because my hands are clean before him.

¹ Of David. My cry goes up to you, O Lord, my Rock; do not keep back your answer from me, so that I may not become like those who go down into the underworld. ² Give ear to the voice of my prayer, when I am crying to you, when my hands are lifted up to your holy place.

⁶ May the Lord be praised, because he has given ear to the voice of my prayer.

⁵ For his wrath is only for a minute; in his grace there is life; weeping may be for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

⁷ Lord, by your grace you have kept my mountain strong: when your face was turned from me I was troubled. ⁸ My voice went up to you, O Lord; I made my prayer to the Lord. ⁹ What profit is there in my blood if I go down into the underworld? will the dust give you praise, or be a witness to your help? ¹⁰ Give ear to me, O Lord, and have mercy on me: Lord, be my helper. ¹¹ By you my sorrow is turned into dancing; you have taken away my clothing of grief, and given me robes of joy;

⁸ They say, He has an evil disease, which will not let him go: and now that he is down he will not get up again. ⁹ Even my dearest friend, in whom I had faith, who took bread with me, is turned against me. ¹⁰ But you, O Lord, have mercy on me, lifting me up, so that I may give them their punishment. ¹¹ By this I see that you have pleasure in me, because my hater does not overcome me.

¹⁵ Let your voice come up to me in the day of trouble; I will be your saviour, so that you may give glory to me.

¹² And mercy, O Lord, is yours, for you give to every man the reward of his work.

¹ To the chief music-maker. With corded instruments. A Psalm. A Song. May God give us mercy and blessing, and let the light of his face be shining on us; Selah.

¹⁵ When his cry comes up to me, I will give him an answer: I will be with him in trouble; I will make him free from danger and give him honour.

¹ I have given my love to the Lord, because he has given ear to the voice of my cry and my prayer. ² He has let my request come before him, and I will make my prayer to him all my days. ³ The nets of death were round me, and the pains of the underworld had me in their grip; I was full of trouble and sorrow. ⁴ Then I made my prayer to the Lord, saying, O Lord, take my soul out of trouble. ⁵ The Lord is full of grace and righteousness; truly, he is a God of mercy. ⁶ The Lord keeps the simple; I was made low, and he was my saviour.

¹² If you say, See, we had no knowledge of this: does not the tester of hearts give thought to it? and he who keeps your soul, has he no knowledge of it? and will he not give to every man the reward of his work?

¹⁹ O people, living in Zion, at Jerusalem, your weeping will be ended; he will certainly have mercy on you at the sound of your cry; when it comes to his ear, he will give you an answer.

³ Let your cry come to me, and I will give you an answer, and let you see great things and secret things of which you had no knowledge.

² In my trouble I was crying to the Lord, and he gave me an answer; out of the deepest underworld I sent up a cry, and you gave ear to my voice. ³ For you have put me down into the deep, into the heart of the sea; and the river was round about me; all your waves and your rolling waters went over me. ⁴ And I said, I have been sent away from before your eyes; how may I ever again see your holy Temple? ⁵ The waters were circling round me, even to the neck; the deep was about me; the sea-grass was twisted round my head. ⁶ I went down to the bases of the mountains; as for the earth, her walls were about me for ever: but you have taken up my life from the underworld, O Lord my God. ⁷ When my soul in me was overcome, I kept the memory of the Lord: and my prayer came in to you, into your holy Temple.

⁴¹ He who gives honour to a prophet, in the name of a prophet, will be given a prophet's reward; and he who gives honour to an upright man, in the name of an upright man, will be given an upright man's reward. ⁴² And whoever gives to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, he will not go without his reward.

²⁸ You have made me see the ways of life; I will be full of joy when I see your face.

¹¹ And the Lord said to him, Get up, and go to the street which is named Straight, and make search at the house of Judas for one named Saul of Tarsus: for he is at prayer;

²⁶ Judging a part in the shame of Christ to be better than all the wealth of Egypt; for he was looking forward to his reward.

²⁴ Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to give you a place in his glory, free from all evil, with great joy,

¹³ And to the Lord who was talking with her she gave this name, You are a God who is seen; for she said, Have I not even here in the waste land had a vision of God and am still living?

¹¹ Then Aaron said to Moses, O my lord, let not our sin be on our heads, for we have done foolishly and are sinners.

¹³ And David said to Nathan, Great is my sin against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, The Lord has put away your sin; death will not come on you.

⁹ For the eyes of the Lord go this way and that, through all the earth, letting it be seen that he is the strong support of those whose hearts are true to him. In this you have done foolishly, for from now you will have wars.

²⁰ If I have done wrong, what have I done to you, O keeper of men? why have you made me a mark for your blows, so that I am a weariness to myself?

⁹ For he has said, It is no profit to a man to take delight in God.

⁴ The Lord is in his holy Temple, the Lord's seat is in heaven; his eyes are watching and testing the children of men.

² The Lord was looking down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any who had wisdom, searching after God.

⁷ The law of the Lord is good, giving new life to the soul: the witness of the Lord is certain, giving wisdom to the foolish. ⁸ The orders of the Lord are right, making glad the heart: the rule of the Lord is holy, giving light to the eyes.

¹²⁸ Because of it I keep straight in all things by your orders; and I am a hater of every false way.

¹ To the chief music-maker. A Psalm. Of David. O Lord, you have knowledge of me, searching out all my secrets. ² You have knowledge when I am seated and when I get up, you see my thoughts from far away. ³ You keep watch over my steps and my sleep, and have knowledge of all my ways. ⁴ For there is not a word on my tongue which is not clear to you, O Lord.

²¹ For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he puts all his goings in the scales.

³ The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

¹³ He who keeps his sins secret will not do well; but one who is open about them, and gives them up, will get mercy.

⁸ If you see the poor under a cruel yoke, and law and right being violently overturned in a country, be not surprised, because one authority is keeping watch on another and there are higher than they.

⁸ The priests did not say, Where is the Lord? and those who were expert in the law had no knowledge of me: and the rulers did evil against me, and the prophets became prophets of the Baal, going after things without value.

¹³ Only be conscious of your sin, the evil you have done against the Lord your God; you have gone with strange men under every branching tree, giving no attention to my voice, says the Lord.

²⁴ In what secret place may a man take cover without my seeing him? says the Lord. Is there any place in heaven or earth where I am not? says the Lord.

¹⁸ Certainly Ephraim's words of grief have come to my ears, You have given me training and I have undergone it like a young cow unused to the yoke: let me be turned and come back, for you are the Lord my God. ¹⁹ Truly, after I had been turned, I had regret for my ways; and after I had got knowledge, I made signs of sorrow: I was put to shame, truly, I was covered with shame, because I had to undergo the shame of my early years.

²⁶ For what profit has a man, if he gets all the world with the loss of his life? or what will a man give in exchange for his life?

¹⁸ I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have done wrong, against heaven and in your eyes: ¹⁹ I am no longer good enough to be named your son: make me like one of your servants. ²⁰ And he got up and went to his father. But while he was still far away, his father saw him and was moved with pity for him and went quickly and took him in his arms and gave him a kiss. ²¹ And his son said to him, Father, I have done wrong, against heaven and in your eyes: I am no longer good enough to be named your son. ²² But the father said to his servants, Get out the first robe quickly, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet:

¹³ The tax-farmer, on the other hand, keeping far away, and not lifting up even his eyes to heaven, made signs of grief and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

²¹ What fruit had you at that time in the things which are now a shame to you? for the end of such things is death.

¹² But the law is holy, and its orders are holy, upright, and good. ¹³ Was then that which is good, death to me? In no way. But the purpose was that sin might be seen to be sin by working death to me through that which is good; so that through the orders of the law sin might seem much more evil. ¹⁴ For we are conscious that the law is of the spirit; but I am of the flesh, given into the power of sin.

¹⁶ But, if I do that which I have no mind to do, I am in agreement with the law that the law is good.

²² In my heart I take pleasure in the law of God,

⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we are false to ourselves and there is nothing true in us. ⁹ If we say openly that we have done wrong, he is upright and true to his word, giving us forgiveness of sins and making us clean from all evil. ¹⁰ If we say that we have no sin, we make him false and his word is not in us.

⁹ Let its morning stars be dark; let it be looking for light, but may it not have any; let it not see the eyes of the dawn.

¹⁶ Or as a child dead at birth I might never have come into existence; like young children who have not seen the light.

²⁰ Why does he give light to him who is in trouble, and life to the bitter in soul;

¹⁶ Will they go down with me into the underworld? Will we go down together into the dust?

²⁸ Your purposes will come about, and light will be shining on your ways.

²⁰ He has no desire for food, and his soul is turned away from delicate meat;

¹⁹ He will go to the generation of his fathers; he will not see the light again.

²³ But you, O God, will send them down into the underworld; the cruel and the false will be cut off before half their days are ended; but I will have faith in you.

¹⁵ Let me not be covered by the flowing waters; let not the deep waters go over my head, and let me not be shut up in the underworld.

² The people who went in the dark have seen a great light, and for those who were living in the land of the deepest night, the light is shining.

¹⁷ See, in place of peace my soul had bitter sorrow. but you have kept back my soul from the underworld; for you have put all my sins out of your memory. ¹⁸ For the underworld is not able to give you praise, death gives you no honour: for those who go down into the underworld there is no hope in your mercy.

⁹ Then Jesus said in answer, Are there not twelve hours in the day? A man may go about in the day without falling, because he sees the light of this world.

¹ And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the great deep and a great chain in his hand. ² And he took the dragon, the old snake, which is the Evil One and Satan, and put chains on him for a thousand years, ³ And put him into the great deep, and it was shut and locked over him, so that he might put the nations in error no longer, till the thousand years were ended: after this he will be let loose for a little time.

¹⁰ So the king of Israel sent to the place where the man of God had said there was danger, and kept clear of it more than once.

¹⁴ For God gives his word in one way, even in two, and man is not conscious of it: ¹⁵ In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep comes on men, while they take their rest on their beds; ¹⁶ Then he makes his secrets clear to men, so that they are full of fear at what they see; ¹⁷ In order that man may be turned from his evil works, and that pride may be taken away from him;

⁶ And there are different operations, but the same God, who is working all things in all.

⁵ Now he who has made us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a witness of what is to come.

⁸ And about this thing I made request to the Lord three times that it might be taken away from me.

¹¹ In whom we have a heritage, being marked out from the first in his purpose who does all things in agreement with his designs;

¹³ For it is God who is the cause of your desires and of your acts, for his good pleasure.

²⁹ And for this purpose I am working, using all my strength by the help of his power which is working in me strongly.

²¹ Make you full of every good work and ready to do all his desires, working in us whatever is pleasing in his eyes through Jesus Christ; and may the glory be given to him for ever and ever. So be it.

¹ To the chief music-maker. Of David. A Psalm. When I was waiting quietly for the Lord, his heart was turned to me, and he gave ear to my cry. ² He took me up out of a deep waste place, out of the soft and sticky earth; he put my feet on a rock, and made my steps certain.

¹³ Because you have taken my soul from the power of death; and kept my feet from falling, so that I may be walking before God in the light of life.

¹⁷ Life and not death will be my part, and I will give out the story of the works of the Lord. ¹⁸ The hand of Jah has been hard on me; but he has not given me up to death.

⁵ O family of Jacob, come, and let us go in the light of the Lord.

¹⁷ See, in place of peace my soul had bitter sorrow. but you have kept back my soul from the underworld; for you have put all my sins out of your memory.

¹² Then again Jesus said to them, I am the light of the world; he who comes with me will not be walking in the dark but will have the light of life.

¹⁸ To make their eyes open, turning them from the dark to the light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may have forgiveness of sins and a heritage among those who are made holy by faith in me.

² How long will it be before you have done talking? Get wisdom, and then we will say what is in our minds.

² Give attention with care to my words; and let this be your comfort.

¹¹ I was waiting for your words, I was giving ear to your wise sayings; while you were searching out what to say,

⁴ Truly, you make the fear of God without effect, so that the time of quiet worship before God is made less by your outcry. ⁵ For your mouth is guided by your sin, and you have taken the tongue of the false for yourself.

²⁷ See, I am conscious of your thoughts, and of your violent purposes against me;

⁵ Is not your evil-doing great? and there is no end to your sins. ⁶ For you have taken your brother's goods when he was not in your debt, and have taken away the clothing of those who have need of it. ⁷ You do not give water to the tired traveller, and from him who has no food you keep back bread. ⁸ For it was the man with power who had the land, and the man with an honoured name who was living in it. ⁹ You have sent widows away without hearing their cause, and you have taken away the support of the child who has no father.

⁵ Let it be far from me! I will certainly not say that you are right! I will come to death before I give up my righteousness.

³ My heart is overflowing with knowledge, my lips say what is true.

¹¹ Come, children, give attention to me; I will be your teacher in the fear of the Lord.

³ From my mouth will come words of wisdom; and in the thoughts of my heart will be knowledge.

¹ Give ear, my sons, to the teaching of a father; give attention so that you may have knowledge: ² For I give you good teaching; do not give up the knowledge you are getting from me.

¹ My son, give attention to my wisdom; let your ear be turned to my teaching: ² So that you may be ruled by a wise purpose, and your lips may keep knowledge.

⁵ Become expert in reason, O you simple ones; you foolish ones, take training to heart.