The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Book of Job
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Chapter 27
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And thus Job continued to lay bare his thought:
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As sure as he is a living God, he, the omnipotent, who so refuses me justice, who makes my lot in life so bitter;
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while life is in me, while he still grants me breath,
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never shall these lips justify the wrong, never this tongue utter the lie!
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Gain your point with me you shall not; I will die sooner than abandon my plea of innocence.
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That claim, once made, I will not forgo; not one act in all my life bids conscience reproach me.
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Count him a knave that is my enemy, every detractor of mine a friend of wrong!✻
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(What is the sinner’s hope worth after all his greedy getting, when God takes the life away from him?✻ In that hour of need,
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his cry for reprieve will go unheard;
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he cannot go on for ever basking in the Almighty’s favour, calling God to his aid.
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Now be God’s hand laid bare, now let me acknowledge openly the counsels of omnipotence!
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Not one of you but knows the truth of it already; yet one and all you must be urging a false plea, without the need for it!
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What spoil, after all, does God grant to the wicked? From his almighty hand, what abiding possession does the man of violence receive?
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Sons beget he never so many, what avails it, when the sword overtakes them, and their children in turn must go wanting bread,
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when the plague gives all the rest of his line their burial, and never a widow to bemoan them?
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What avails it, to heap up silver like the sand, buy fine clothes, too, and think such treasures cheap as dirt,
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if more upright men than he, more innocent than he, must have the wearing of those clothes, share out that silver at last?
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Light as the moth he builds; not so frail a shelter the vineyard-watcher weaves about him.
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Rich he is laid to rest, but nothing takes with him; rich he shall wake no more.✻
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Helpless in the flood, driven in darkness by the storm,
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carried off, as if sirocco or whirlwind had swept him away,
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he is routed before the pitiless onslaught,
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hands clapped in triumph, tongues hissing in derision as he goes.)
