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 – Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naama thite – 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.
------------------------------------------------------------
34 / 34
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 – less solid – 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?