CHAPTER 2

¹And one day, the sons of God came to stand in attendance before the LORD, and the Adversary, too, came among them to stand in attendance before the LORD. ²And the LORD said to the Adversary, “From whence do you come?” And the Adversary answered the LORD and said, “From roaming the earth and walking about in it.” ³And the LORD said to the Adversary, “Have you paid heed to My servant Job, for there is none like him on earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and shuns evil and still clings to his innocence, and you incited Me against him to destroy him for nothing.” ⁴And the Adversary answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! A man will give all he has for his own life. ⁵Yet, reach out, pray, Your hand and strike his bone and his flesh. Will he not curse You to Your face?” ⁶And the LORD said to the Adversary, “Here he is in your hands. Only preserve his life.” ⁷And the Adversary went out from before the LORD’s presence. And he struck Job with a grievous burning rash from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. ⁸And he took a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he was sitting among the ashes. ⁹And his wife said to him, “Do you still cling to your innocence? Curse God and die.” ¹⁰And he said to her, “You speak as one of the base women would speak. Shall we accept good from God, too, and evil we shall not accept?” With all this, Job did not offend with his lips.

¹¹And Job’s three companions heard of all this harm that had come upon him, and they came, each from his place—Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, and they agreed to meet to grieve with him and to comfort him. ¹²And they lifted up their eyes from afar and did not recognize him, and they lifted up their voices and wept, and each tore his garment, and they tossed dust on their heads toward the heavens. ¹³And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that the pain was very great.