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¹ Iob aunswered, & saide:² I haue oft times heard such thinges: miserable geuers of comfort are ye all the sort of you.³ Shall not vaine wordes come yet to an ende? Or what maketh thee bolde so to aunswere?⁴ I coulde speake as ye do also: but would God that your soule were in my soules steade, then could I frame wordes for you, and shake my head at you:⁵ I shoulde comfort you with my mouth, & releasse your paine with the talking of my lippes.

⁶ For all my wordes my sorowe wyll not ceasse: And though I holde my tongue, what am I eased?⁷ But now that [God] hath sent me aduersitie, thou hast troubled al my congregation.⁸ And that thou hast filled me with wrinckles my fleshe is recorde, and my leanenesse ryseth vp against me and beareth witnes thereof in my face.⁹ His wrath hath torne [me] he hateth me, & gnasheth vpon me with his teeth: myne enemie loketh fiercely vpon me with his eyes.¹⁰ They haue opened their mouthes wide vpon me, and smitten me vpon the cheeke dispitefully, they gather the selues together against me.¹¹ God hath shut me vp with the vngodly, and deliuered me into the handes of the wicked.¹² I was in wealth, but he hath brought me to nought: he hath taken me by the necke, he hath all to shaken me, and set me as a marke for him selfe.¹³ His archers compasse me rounde about, he woundeth my raines, and doth not spare, my bowels hath he powred vpon the grounde.¹⁴ He hath geuen me one wounde vpon an other, and is fallen vpon me lyke a giaunt.¹⁵ I haue sowed a sackecloth vpon my skinne, and wallowed my head in the dust.¹⁶ My face is withered with weeping, & in mine eyes is the shadowe of death.

¹⁷ Howbeit there is no wickednesse in my handes, but my prayer is cleane.¹⁸ O earth couer not thou my blood, and let my crying finde no roome.¹⁹ For lo, my witnesse is in heauen, and he that knoweth me, is in the height.²⁰ My friendes geue me many wordes to scorne, and myne eye powreth out teares vnto God.²¹ O that a body might pleate with God, as one man doth with an other:²² Yet the number of my yeres is come, and the way that I must go is at hand, from whence I shall not turne againe.