Family Prayer
in the Early Evening

² “Hear my words, you wise men,
    and give ear to me, you who know;
³ for the ear tests words
    as the palate tastes food.
⁴ Let us choose what is right;
    let us know among ourselves what is good.
⁵ For Job has said, ‘I am in the right,
    and God has taken away my right;
⁶ in spite of my right I am counted a liar;
    my wound is incurable, though I am without transgression.’
⁷ What man is like Job,
    who drinks up scoffing like water,
⁸ who travels in company with evildoers
    and walks with wicked men?
⁹ For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing
    that he should take delight in God.’

¹⁰ “Therefore, hear me, you men of understanding:
    far be it from God that he should do wickedness,
    and from the Almighty that he should do wrong.
¹¹ For according to the work of a man he will repay him,
    and according to his ways he will make it befall him.
¹² Of a truth, God will not do wickedly,
    and the Almighty will not pervert justice.
¹³ Who gave him charge over the earth,
    and who laid on him the whole world?
¹⁴ If he should set his heart to it
    and gather to himself his spirit and his breath,
¹⁵ all flesh would perish together,
    and man would return to dust.

²¹ “For his eyes are on the ways of a man,
    and he sees all his steps.
²² There is no gloom or deep darkness
    where evildoers may hide themselves.
²³ For God has no need to consider a man further,
    that he should go before God in judgment.
²⁴ He shatters the mighty without investigation
    and sets others in their place.
²⁵ Thus, knowing their works,
    he overturns them in the night, and they are crushed.
²⁶ He strikes them for their wickedness
    in a place for all to see,
²⁷ because they turned aside from following him
    and had no regard for any of his ways,
²⁸ so that they caused the cry of the poor to come to him,
    and he heard the cry of the afflicted—

³¹ “For has anyone said to God,
    ‘I have borne punishment; I will not offend any more;
³² teach me what I do not see;
    if I have done iniquity, I will do it no more’?
³³ Will he then make repayment to suit you,
    because you reject it?
For you must choose, and not I;
    therefore declare what you know.
³⁴ Men of understanding will say to me,
    and the wise man who hears me will say:
³⁵ ‘Job speaks without knowledge;
    his words are without insight.’
³⁶ Would that Job were tried to the end,
    because he answers like wicked men.
³⁷ For he adds rebellion to his sin;
    he claps his hands among us
    and multiplies his words against God.”