Immerse: Poets Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 287
5:26–6:15
Job
your descendants will be as plentiful as grass!
You will go to the grave at a ripe old age,
like a sheaf of grain harvested at the proper time!
“We have studied life and found all this to be true.
Listen to my counsel, and apply it to yourself.”
Then Job spoke again:
“If my misery could be weighed
and my troubles be put on the scales,
they would outweigh all the sands of the sea.
That is why I spoke impulsively.
For the Almighty has struck me down with his arrows.
Their poison infects my spirit.
God’s terrors are lined up against me.
Don’t I have a right to complain?
Don’t wild donkeys bray when they find no grass,
and oxen bellow when they have no food?
Don’t people complain about unsalted food?
Does anyone want the tasteless white of an egg?
My appetite disappears when I look at it;
I gag at the thought of eating it!
“Oh, that I might have my request,
that God would grant my desire.
I wish he would crush me.
I wish he would reach out his hand and kill me.
At least I can take comfort in this:
Despite the pain,
I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
But I don’t have the strength to endure.
I have nothing to live for.
Do I have the strength of a stone?
Is my body made of bronze?
No, I am utterly helpless,
without any chance of success.
“One should be kind to a fainting friend,
but you accuse me without any fear of the Almighty.
My brothers, you have proved as unreliable as a seasonal brook
that overflows its banks in the spring
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