✧1“I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze with desire at a virgin? ✧2For what is the allotment of God from above, or the heritage from the Almighty on high? ✧3Does not disaster come to the unjust and calamity to the workers of iniquity? ✧4Does He not see my ways and count my every step? ✧5If I have walked in falsehood or my foot has rushed to deceit, ✧6let God weigh me with honest scales, that He may know my integrity. ✧7If my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has followed my eyes, or if impurity has stuck to my hands, ✧8then may another eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted. ✧9If my heart has been enticed by my neighbor’s wife, or I have lurked at his door,
Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Dedicated to the public domain by the rights holder.
✧10then may my own wife grind grain for another, and may other men sleep with her.
✧11For that would be a heinous crime, an iniquity to be judged.
✧12For it is a fire that burns down to Abaddon; it would root out my entire harvest.
✧13If I have rejected the cause of my manservant or maidservant when they made a complaint against me,
✧14what will I do when God rises to judge? How will I answer when called to account?
✧15Did not He who made me in the womb also make them? Did not the same One form us in the womb?
✧16If I have denied the desires of the poor or allowed the widow’s eyes to fail,
✧17if I have eaten my morsel alone, not sharing it with the fatherless—
✧18though from my youth I reared him as would a father, and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow—
✧19if I have seen one perish for lack of clothing, or a needy man without a cloak,
✧20if his heart has not blessed me for warming him with the fleece of my sheep,
✧21if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless because I saw that I had support in the gate,
✧22then may my arm fall from my shoulder and be torn from its socket.
✧23For calamity from God terrifies me, and His splendor I cannot overpower.
✧24If I have put my trust in gold or called pure gold my security,
✧25if I have rejoiced in my great wealth because my hand had gained so much,
✧26if I have beheld the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor,
✧27so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand threw a kiss from my mouth,
✧28this would also be an iniquity to be judged, for I would have denied God on high.
✧29If I have rejoiced in my enemy’s ruin, or exulted when evil befell him—
✧30I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for his life with a curse—
✧31if the men of my house have not said, ‘Who is there who has not had his fill?’—
✧32but no stranger had to lodge on the street, for my door has been open to the traveler—
✧33if I have covered my transgressions like Adam by hiding my guilt in my heart,
✧34because I greatly feared the crowds and the contempt of the clans terrified me, so that I kept silent and would not go outside—
✧35(Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my signature. Let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser compose an indictment.
✧36Surely I would carry it on my shoulder and wear it like a crown.
✧37I would give account of all my steps; I would approach Him like a prince.)—
✧38if my land cries out against me and its furrows weep together,
✧39if I have devoured its produce without payment or broken the spirit of its tenants,
✧40then let briers grow instead of wheat and stinkweed instead of barley.” Thus conclude the words of Job.