<t /><p class="bodytext">When Job&#8217;s three friends heard about all this calamity that had happened to him, each of them came from his own country<n id="2" /> &#8211; Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.<n id="3" /> They met together<n id="4" /> to come to show sympathy<n id="5" /> for him and to console<n id="6" /> him.

<p class="poetry">Manasseh fought against<n id="1" /> Ephraim,p> <p class="poetry">and Ephraim against Manasseh;p> <p class="poetry">together they fought against Judah.p> <p class="poetry">Despite all this, his anger does not subside,p> <p class="poetry">and his hand is ready to strike again.<n id="2" />p>

<p class="poetry">Tell me! Present the evidence!<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">Let them consult with one another!p> <p class="poetry">Who predicted this in the past?p> <p class="poetry">Who announced it beforehand?p> <p class="poetry">Was it not I, the <sc>Lordsc>?p> <p class="poetry">I have no peer, there is no God but me,p> <p class="poetry">a God who vindicates and delivers;<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">there is none but me.p>

<p class="poetry">for your sins and your ancestors&#8217; sins,&#8221;<n id="1" /> says the <sc>Lordsc>.p> <p class="poetry">&#8220;Because they burned incense on the mountainsp> <p class="poetry">and offended<n id="2" /> me on the hills,p> <p class="poetry">I will punish them in full measure.&#8221;<n id="3" />p>

<p class="poetry">I will go to the leaders<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">and speak with them.p> <p class="poetry">Surely they know what the <sc>Lordsc> demands.<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">Surely they know what their God requires of them.&#8221;<n id="3" />p> <p class="poetry">Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authorityp> <p class="poetry">and refuse to submit to him.<n id="4" />p>

<p class="poetry">I am as full of anger as you are, <sc>Lordsc>,<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">I am tired of trying to hold it in.&#8221;p> <p class="bodytext">The <sc>Lordsc> answered,<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">&#8220;Vent it, then,<n id="3" /> on the children who play in the streetp> <p class="poetry">and on the young men who are gathered together.p> <p class="poetry">Husbands and wives are to be included,<n id="4" />p> <p class="poetry">as well as the old and those who are advanced in years.p>

<p class="poetry">So, this is what the <sc>Lordsc> says:p> <p class="poetry">&#8216;I will assuredly<n id="1" /> make these people stumble to their doom.<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction.<n id="3" />p> <p class="poetry">Friends and neighbors will die.&#8217;p>

<p class="bodytext">But in the seventh month<n id="1" /> Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama who was a member of the royal family and had been one of Zedekiah&#8217;s chief officers, came with ten of his men to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah. While they were eating a meal together with him there at Mizpah,

<p class="poetry">&#8220;When that time comes,&#8221; says the <sc>Lordsc>,<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">&#8220;the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together.p> <p class="poetry">They will come back with tears of repentancep> <p class="poetry">as they seek the <sc>Lordsc> their God.<n id="2" />p>