Rhyming Job, Chapter 23

Rhyming Job, Chapter 23

“It’s bitter, my complaint, the present tense,
His hand is heavy,” this how Job replied.
“In spite of all my groaning I express.
If only I knew where him, I could find;

“If only I could, to his dwelling, go!
I would, before him, honest, state my case
With heady arguments, my mouth, bestow.
I would find out his answer that I’d face.

“Consider that, what he would say to me.
Would he oppose me now vigorously?
No, he’d no charges ‘gainst me pressing-ly.
The upright, innocence establishing.

“Before him, there, forever from my judge,
The place from where I’d be deliverèd.

“But he’s not there if I go to the east;
If, to the west, my sight, he won’t eclipse.
When in the north he works, him, I won’t see;
When he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse

“of him. But he knows that, the way I take;
When he’s, me, tested, I’ll come forth as gold.
My feet have closely followed all his ways;
To his paths, I have kept, not turned aside.

“I’ve not departed from his lips’ commands;
His words, I’ve treasured, more than daily bread.

“Alone he stands, and who does, him, oppose?
Does what he wants, whate’er that he might please.
He carries out, against me, his decree,
And many plans that he still has in store.
That’s why I’m terrified of him, before;
When I think of all this, I fear him more.
God’s made my heart faint; I am terrified
By the Almighty. Yet, not silencèd,
Though darkness, thick, face-covering applied.”