Job 31

1 I made a covenant with mine eyes, that I should not think on a virgin.⋮

2 For what part should God above have in me, and what heritage should Almighty God of high things have in me?⋮

3 Whether perdition is not to a wicked man, and alienation of God is to men working wickedness?⋮

4 Whether he beholdeth not my ways, and numbereth all my goings?⋮

5 If I have gone in vanity, and my foot hath hasted to go in guile or treachery,⋮

6 God weigh me in a just balance, and know he my simpleness.⋮

7 If my steps have bowed from the way; and if mine eyes have pursued or followed mine heart, consenting to lust, and if a spot have cleaved to mine hands;⋮

8 sow I, and another eat, and my generation be drawn out by the root.⋮

9 And if mine heart was deceived on a woman, and if I have set ambush at the door of my friend;⋮

10 my wife be then the whore of another man, and other men be bowed down upon her.⋮

11 For this is unleaveful, and the most wickedness.⋮

12 Fire is devouring till to wasting, and drawing up by the root all generations.⋮

13 If I despised to take doom with my servant and with mine handmaid, when they strived against me.⋮

14 What soothly shall I do, when God shall rise up to deem? and when he shall ask, what shall I answer to him?⋮

15 Whether he, that wrought also him, made not me in the womb, and one God formed me in the womb?⋮

16 If I denied to poor men that, that they would, and if I made the eyes of a widow to abide;⋮

17 if I alone ate my morsel, and a fatherless child ate not thereof;⋮

18 for merciful doing increased with me, from my young childhood, and it went out of my mother’s womb with me;⋮

19 if I despised a man passing forth by me, for he had not a cloth, and a poor man without covering;⋮

20 if his sides blessed not me, and were not made hot of the fleece of my sheep;⋮

21 if I raised up mine hand upon a fatherless child, yea, when I saw me the higher in the gate;⋮

22 my shoulder fall from his joint, and mine arm with his bones be all-broken.⋮

23 For evermore I dreaded God, as waves waxing great upon me; and I might not bear his burden.⋮

24 If I guessed gold my strength, and I said to pured gold, Thou art my trust;⋮

25 if I was glad on my many riches, and for mine hand found full many things;⋮

26 if I saw the sun, when it shined, and the moon going clearly;⋮

27 and if mine heart was glad in private, and if I kissed mine hand with my mouth;⋮

28 the which is the most wickedness, and denying against the highest God;⋮

29 if I had joy at the falling of him, that hated me, and if I joyed fully or full out joyed, that evil had found him;⋮

30 for I gave not my throat to do sin, that I should assail and curse his soul;⋮

31 if the men of my tabernacle said not, Who giveth, that we be ful filled of his fleshes?⋮

32 a pilgrim dwelled not withoutforth; my door was open to a way-goer or a way-faring man;⋮

33 if I as a man hid my sin, and covered my wickedness in my bosom;⋮

34 if I dreaded at the full great multitude, and if despising of neigh-bours made me afeared; and not more, I was still, and went not out of the door;⋮

35 who giveth then an helper to me, that Almighty God hear my desire? that he that deemeth, write a book,⋮

36 that I bear it on my shoulder, and encompass it as a crown to me?⋮

37 By all my degrees I shall pronounce it, and I shall as offering offer it to the prince.⋮

38 If my land crieth against me, and his furrows weep with it;⋮

39 if I ate fruits thereof without money, and I tormented the soul of earth-tillers of it;⋮

40 a briar grow to me for wheat, and a thorn for barley.⋮