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And if my soul grieved not for the needy.

²⁶Yet, when I looked for good, there came evil;

And when I waited for light, there came darkness.

²⁷Mine inwards boil, and rest not;

Days of affliction are come upon me.

²⁸I go mourning without the sun;

I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.

²⁹I am become a brother to jackals,

And a companion to ostriches.

³⁰My skin is black, and falleth from me,

And my bones are burned with heat.

³¹Therefore is my harp turned to mourning,

And my pipe into the voice of them that weep.

 

31 I made a covenant with mine eyes;

How then should I look upon a maid?

²For what would be the portion of God from above,

And the heritage of the Almighty from on high?

³Is it not calamity to the unrighteous,

And disaster to the workers of iniquity?

⁴Doth not He see my ways,

And count all my steps?

 

⁵If I have walked with vanity,

And my foot hath hasted to deceit—

⁶Let me be weighed in a just balance,

That God may know mine integrity—

⁷If my step hath turned out of the way,

And my heart walked after mine eyes,

And if any spot hath cleaved to my hands;

⁸Then let me sow, and let another eat;

Yea, let the produce of my field be rooted out.

 

⁹If my heart have been enticed unto a woman,

And I have lain in wait at my neighbour's door;

¹⁰Then let my wife grind unto another,

And let others bow down upon her.

¹¹For that were a heinous crime;

Yea, it were an iniquity to be punished by the judges.

¹²For it is a fire that consumeth unto destruction,

And would root out all mine increase.

 

¹³If I did despise the cause of my man-servant,

Or of my maid-servant, when they contended with me—

¹⁴What then shall I do when God riseth up?

And when He remembereth, what shall I answer Him?

¹⁵Did not He that made me in the womb make him?

And did not One fashion us in the womb?

 

¹⁶If I have withheld aught that the poor desired,

Or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail;

¹⁷Or have eaten my morsel myself alone,

And the fatherless hath not eaten thereof—

¹⁸Nay, from my youth he grew up with me as with a father,

And I have been her guide from my mother's womb.

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