¹ Another day, the sons of God came to attend on Yahweh and Satan came with them too.

² So Yahweh said to Satan, 'Where have you been?' 'Prowling about on earth,' he answered, 'roaming around there.'

³ So Yahweh asked him, 'Did you pay any attention to my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth: a sound and honest man who fears God and shuns evil. He persists in his integrity still; you achieved nothing by provoking me to ruin him.'

⁴ 'Skin after skin!' Satan replied. 'Someone will give away all he has to save his life.

⁵ But stretch out your hand and lay a finger on his bone and flesh; I warrant you, he will curse you to your face.'

⁶ 'Very well,' Yahweh said to Satan, 'he is in your power. But spare his life.'

⁷ So Satan left the presence of Yahweh. He struck Job down with malignant ulcers from the sole of his foot to the top of his head.

⁸ Job took a piece of pot to scrape himself, and went and sat among the ashes.

⁹ Then his wife said to him, 'Why persist in this integrity of yours? Curse God and die.'

¹⁰ 'That is how a fool of a woman talks,' Job replied. 'If we take happiness from God's hand, must we not take sorrow too?' And in all this misfortune Job uttered no sinful word.

¹¹ The news of all the disasters that had fallen on Job came to the ears of three of his friends. Each of them set out from home -- Eliphaz of Teman, Bildad of Shuah and Zophar of Naamath -- and by common consent they decided to go and offer him sympathy and consolation.

¹² Looking at him from a distance, they could not recognise him; they wept aloud and tore their robes and threw dust over their heads.

¹³ They sat there on the ground beside him for seven days and seven nights. To Job they spoke never a word, for they saw how much he was suffering.

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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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