Rhyming Job, Chapter 2

Rhyming Job, Chapter 2

Upon another day the angels came
before the LORD, as to present themselves,
and Satan, too, himself, he did display.
The LORD said unto Satan, “Now do tell

“where you’ve come from?” Then, Satan made it known:
“From roaming through the earth, I, to and fro,
run back and forth, from place to place, I go.”

The LORD to Satan: “Have, my servant, Job,
considered him, you? None on earth like him;
he’s blameless, upright, God, he fears within,
who’s shunning evil, turns away from sin.
He still maintains it, his integrity,
though you, ‘gainst him, no cause, incited me,
so lacking reason, ruin to him, achieved.”

And in reply said Satan: “Skin for skin!
All that he has, that what a man will give,
for his own life, but now, your hand, stretch out,
his flesh and bones, his body strike, within.
Then to your face, Job’s curses from his mouth.”

The LORD then said to Satan, “Very well,
then, in your hands I place him but I tell
you that his life, that thing, what you must spare.”

So Satan left God’s presence, out from there;
afflicted Job with many painful sores,
from them, his feet, their soles, up to its crown,
his head’s. Some pottery that had been shorn,
he took it, and with it, he scraped them ‘round,
as he, among the ashes, there, remained.

His wife said to him, “Do you still maintain
integrity of yours? Curse God and die!”

“Just like a foolish woman,” his reply,
“is how you’re talking. Shall we just accept
good things from God, but trouble, we reject?”

In all of this, Job kept himself from sin
in what he said. When they heard, Job’s three friends,
were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad
the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite,
of all the many troubles that he had,
they set out from their homes to sympathize,
they by agreement, all together met,
to go and comfort him. A distance, yet,
away from him they were, when they saw Job,
and recognized him, there? As one unknown.
To weep aloud, was that, what they began,
they tore their robes, and on their heads, dust, sand,
they sprinklèd. For seven days and nights,
they sat upon the ground with him that time.
Not one of them unto Job said a word,
they saw how great his suffering, him, hurt.