Page:JPS-1917-Universal.djvu/974

30.25 :And if my soul grieved not for the needy.
 * Yet, when I looked for good, there came evil;
 * And when I waited for light, there came darkness.
 * Mine inwards boil, and rest not;
 * Days of affliction are come upon me.
 * I go mourning without the sun;
 * I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.
 * I am become a brother to jackals,
 * And a companion to ostriches.
 * My skin is black, and falleth from me,
 * And my bones are burned with heat.
 * Therefore is my harp turned to mourning,
 * And my pipe into the voice of them that weep.


 * I made a covenant with mine eyes;
 * How then should I look upon a maid?
 * For what would be the portion of God from above,
 * And the heritage of the Almighty from on high?
 * Is it not calamity to the unrighteous,
 * And disaster to the workers of iniquity?
 * Doth not He see my ways,
 * And count all my steps?


 * If I have walked with vanity,
 * And my foot hath hasted to deceit—
 * Let me be weighed in a just balance,
 * That God may know mine integrity—
 * If my step hath turned out of the way,
 * And my heart walked after mine eyes,
 * And if any spot hath cleaved to my hands;
 * Then let me sow, and let another eat;
 * Yea, let the produce of my field be rooted out.


 * If my heart have been enticed unto a woman,
 * And I have lain in wait at my neighbour's door;
 * Then let my wife grind unto another,
 * And let others bow down upon her.
 * For that were a heinous crime;
 * Yea, it were an iniquity to be punished by the judges.
 * For it is a fire that consumeth unto destruction,
 * And would root out all mine increase.


 * If I did despise the cause of my man-servant,
 * Or of my maid-servant, when they contended with me—
 * What then shall I do when God riseth up?
 * And when He remembereth, what shall I answer Him?
 * Did not He that made me in the womb make him?
 * And did not One fashion us in the womb?


 * If I have withheld aught that the poor desired,
 * Or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail;
 * Or have eaten my morsel myself alone,
 * And the fatherless hath not eaten thereof—
 * Nay, from my youth he grew up with me as with a father,
 * And I have been her guide from my mother's womb.