Job 7

sn’t each person consigned to forced labor on earth?
Are not his days like those of a hired worker?
2 Like a slave he longs for shade;
like a hired worker he waits for his pay.
3 So I have been made to inherit months of futility,
and troubled nights have been assigned to me.
4 When I lie down I think,
“When will I get up? ”
But the evening drags on endlessly,
and I toss and turn until dawn.
5 My flesh is clothed with maggots and encrusted with dirt.
My skin forms scabs and then oozes.
6 My days pass more swiftly than a weaver’s shuttle;
they come to an end without hope.
7 Remember that my life is but a breath.
My eye will never again see anything good.
8 The eye of anyone who looks on me
will no longer see me.
Your eyes will look for me, but I will be gone.
9 As a cloud fades away and vanishes,
so the one who goes down to Sheol will never rise again.
10 He will never return to his house;
his hometown will no longer remember him.
11 Therefore I will not restrain my mouth.
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I the sea or a sea monster,
that you keep me under guard?
13 When I say, “My bed will comfort me,
and my couch will ease my complaint,”
14 then you frighten me with dreams,
and terrify me with visions,
15 so that I prefer strangling —
death rather than life in this body.
16 I give up! I will not live forever.
Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.
17 What is a mere human, that you think so highly of him
and pay so much attention to him?
18 You inspect him every morning,
and put him to the test every moment.
19 Will you ever look away from me,
or leave me alone long enough to swallow?
20 If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
Watcher of humanity?
Why have you made me your target,
so that I have become a burden to you?
21 Why not forgive my sin
and pardon my iniquity?
For soon I will lie down in the grave.
You will eagerly seek me, but I will be gone.

Job 8

BILDAD SPEAKS
Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:

2 How long will you go on saying these things?
Your words are a blast of wind.
3 Does God pervert justice?
Does the Almighty pervert what is right?
4 Since your children sinned against him,
he gave them over to their rebellion.
5 But if you earnestly seek God
and ask the Almighty for mercy,
6 if you are pure and upright,
then he will move even now on your behalf
and restore the home where your righteousness dwells.
7 Then, even if your beginnings were modest,
your final days will be full of prosperity.
8 For ask the previous generation,
and pay attention to what their ancestors discovered,
9 since we were born only yesterday and know nothing.
Our days on earth are but a shadow.
10 Will they not teach you and tell you
and speak from their understanding?
11 Does papyrus grow where there is no marsh?
Do reeds flourish without water?
12 While still uncut shoots,
they would dry up quicker than any other plant.
13 Such is the destiny of all who forget God;
the hope of the godless will perish.
14 His source of confidence is fragile;
what he trusts in is a spider’s web.
15 He leans on his web, but it doesn’t stand firm.
He grabs it, but it does not hold up.
16 He is a well-watered plant in the sunshine;
his shoots spread out over his garden.
17 His roots are intertwined around a pile of rocks.
He looks for a home among the stones.
18 If he is uprooted from his place,
it will deny knowing him, saying, “I never saw you.”
19 Surely this is the joy of his way of life;
yet others will sprout from the dust.
20 Look, God does not reject a person of integrity,
and he will not support evildoers.
21 He will yet fill your mouth with laughter
and your lips with a shout of joy.
22 Your enemies will be clothed with shame;
the tent of the wicked will no longer exist.

Job 9

JOB’S REPLY TO BILDAD
Then Job answered:

2 Yes, I know what you’ve said is true,
but how can a person be justified before God?
3 If one wanted to take him to court,
he could not answer God once in a thousand times.
4 God is wise and all-powerful.
Who has opposed him and come out unharmed?
5 He removes mountains without their knowledge,
overturning them in his anger.
6 He shakes the earth from its place
so that its pillars tremble.
7 He commands the sun not to shine
and seals off the stars.
8 He alone stretches out the heavens
and treads on the waves of the sea.
9 He makes the stars: the Bear, Orion,
the Pleiades, and the constellations of the southern sky.
10 He does great and unsearchable things,
wonders without number.
11 If he passed by me, I wouldn’t see him;
if he went by, I wouldn’t recognize him.
12 If he snatches something, who can stop him?
Who can ask him, “What are you doing? ”
13 God does not hold back his anger;
Rahab’s assistants cringe in fear beneath him!
14 How then can I answer him
or choose my arguments against him?
15 Even if I were in the right, I could not answer.
I could only beg my Judge for mercy.
16 If I summoned him and he answered me,
I do not believe he would pay attention to what I said.
17 He batters me with a whirlwind
and multiplies my wounds without cause.
18 He doesn’t let me catch my breath
but fills me with bitter experiences.
19 If it is a matter of strength, look, he is the powerful one!
If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?
20 Even if I were in the right, my own mouth would condemn me;
if I were blameless, my mouth would declare me guilty.
21 Though I am blameless,
I no longer care about myself;
I renounce my life.
22 It is all the same. Therefore I say,
“He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.”
23 When catastrophe brings sudden death,
he mocks the despair of the innocent.
24 The earth is handed over to the wicked;
he blindfolds its judges.
If it isn’t he, then who is it?
25 My days fly by faster than a runner;
they flee without seeing any good.
26 They sweep by like boats made of papyrus,
like an eagle swooping down on its prey.
27 If I said, “I will forget my complaint,
change my expression, and smile,”
28 I would still live in terror of all my pains.
I know you will not acquit me.
29 Since I will be found guilty,
why should I struggle in vain?
30 If I wash myself with snow,
and cleanse my hands with lye,
31 then you dip me in a pit of mud,
and my own clothes despise me!
32 For he is not a man like me, that I can answer him,
that we can take each other to court.
33 There is no mediator between us,
to lay his hand on both of us.
34 Let him take his rod away from me
so his terror will no longer frighten me.
35 Then I would speak and not fear him.
But that is not the case; I am on my own.

Acts 7:35–60

ISRAEL’S REBELLION AGAINST GOD
37 “This is the Moses who said to the Israelites: God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. 38 He is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us. 39 Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him. Instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron: Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what’s happened to him. 41 They even made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and were celebrating what their hands had made. 42 God turned away and gave them up to worship the stars of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:

House of Israel, did you bring me offerings and sacrifices

for forty years in the wilderness?

43 You took up the tent of Moloch

and the star of your god Rephan,

the images that you made to worship.

So I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.

GOD’S REAL TABERNACLE
44 “Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen. 45 Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them, until the days of David. 46 He found favor in God’s sight and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 It was Solomon, rather, who built him a house, 48 but the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands, as the prophet says:

49 Heaven is my throne,

and the earth my footstool.

What sort of house will you build for me?

says the Lord,

or what will be my resting place?

50 Did not my hand make all these things?

RESISTING THE HOLY SPIRIT
51 “You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your ancestors did, you do also. 52 Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. 53 You received the law under the direction of angels and yet have not kept it.”

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MARTYR
54 When they heard these things, they were enraged and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 He said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God! ”

57 They yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him. 58 They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 While they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit! ” 60 He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them! ” And after saying this, he fell asleep.

Acts 8:1–3

SAUL THE PERSECUTOR
Saul agreed with putting him to death.

On that day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria.
2 Devout men buried Stephen and mourned deeply over him. 3 Saul, however, was ravaging the church. He would enter house after house, drag off men and women, and put them in prison.

— Job 7–9, Acts 7:35–60; 8:1–3 (CSB)