1 Once more the heavenly beings came to present themselves be fore Yah weh,
and again Sa tan was with them.
2 Yahweh asked Satan, ¡°Where have you been?¡±
Satan answered, ¡°Going up and down the earth, roaming about.¡±
3 Yahweh asked again, ¡°Have you noticed my servant Job? No one on earth is
as blameless and upright as he, a man who fears God and avoids evil. He
still holds fast to his integrity even if you provoked me to ruin him
without cause.¡±
4 Satan replied, ¡°Skin for skin! For his own life, anyone will give
everything he owns.
5 But lay your hand against his own flesh and bones and he will curse you to
your face.¡±
6 Yahweh said to Satan, ¡°Very well, he is in your power. But spare his
life.¡±
7 So Satan left the presence of Yahweh and afflicted Job with festering
sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
8 Job took a potsherd to scrape himself and sat among the ashes.
9 His wife said to him, ¡°Do you still hold on to your integrity? Curse God
and die!¡±
10 Job replied, ¡°You talk foolishly. If we receive good things from God, why
can¡¯t we accept evil from him?¡± In spite of this calamity, Job did not utter
a sinful word.
Here Begin the Poems of Job
11 Three of Job¡¯s friends ¨C Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and
Zophar the Naama thite ¨C heard of the misfortune that came upon him. They
set out from their own homes and journeyed together to offer their sympathy
and consolation to Job.
12 Fail ing to recognize him from the distance, they wept aloud, tore their
garments and poured dust upon their heads.
13 For seven days and seven nights, they sat on the ground beside him. They
did not say a word to Job, for they saw how terribly he suf fered.
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Comments , Chapter 2
• 2.11 As we remarked in the introduction, this is the beginning of the
dialogue on suffering, leaving aside the story of Job, the popular figure
who accepted God¡¯s will without arguing as we saw in chapter 2.
Cursed be the day I was born (v. 3). These first verses repeat what Jeremiah
said in a moment of despair (see Jer 20:14). God¡¯s friends have at times
spoken in the same way, others ¨C less solid ¨C have thought of suicide.
Why is light given to the miserable¡ whose path has vanished (vv. 20-23)?
Why are children born crippled or blind, or destined for an atrocious death?
We would be wrong to only think of the marginalized or those crushed by
misfortune. It¡¯s in the world where nothing is wanting where people are not
desperate, but without hope in the midst of gadgets: it is there where young
couples opt for death in not wanting to have children.
In past centuries people were driven by the uncontainable energy of life.
They lived and made sacrifices for the survival of their people. Our parents
worked and procreated without asking themselves why. When people reach
maturity in critical thinking, they need an answer to this question: Why
live if, in the end, life leads nowhere?
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