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- Iob aunswered, and saide:
- 2
- O heare diligently my wordes, and that shalbe in steede of your consolations,
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- Suffer me that I may speake, and when I haue spoken mocke on.
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- Is it for mans sake that I make this disputation?
Which if it were so, shoulde not my spirite then be in sore trouble?
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- Marke me [well] and be abashed, and lay your hande vpon your mouth.
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- For when I consider [my selfe] I am afrayde, and my fleshe is smitten with feare.
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- Wherefore do wicked men liue, come to their olde age, and increase in richesse?
- 8
- Their children lyue in their sight, and their generation before their eyes.
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- Their houses are safe from all feare, and the rod of God is not vpon them.
- 10
- Their bullocke gendreth and that not out of time, their cowe calueth and is not vnfruitfull.
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- They sende foorth their children by flockes, & their sonnes [leade the] daunce.
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- They beare with them tabrets and harpes, and reioyce in the sounde of the organs.
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- They spend their dayes in wealthines, but sodainely they go downe to the graue.
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- They say also vnto God: Go from vs, we desire not the knowledge of thy wayes.
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- Who is the almightie that we should serue him?
And what profite should we haue if we should pray vnto him?
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- Lo, there is vtterly no goodnesse in their hande, therefore wyll I not haue to do with the counsaile of the vngodly.
- 17
- How oft shall the candell of the wicked be put out, and their destruction come vpon them?
O what sorowe shall God geue them for their part in his wrath?
- 18
- Yea, they shalbe euen as hay before the winde, and as chaffe that the storme carieth away.
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- God wyll lay vp the sorowe of the father for his children: & when he rewardeth him, he shall know it.
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- Their owne miserie shal they see with their eyes, and drinke of the fearefull wrath of the almightie.
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- For what careth he for his house after his death, when the number of his monethes is cut short?
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- Seeing God hath the highest power of all, who can teache him any knowledge?
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- One dyeth in his full strength, being in all ease and prosperitie,
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- His breastes are full of milke, and his bones runne full of marowe.
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- Another dyeth in the bitternes of his soule, and neuer eateth with pleasure.
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- They shall sleepe both alyke in the earth, and the wormes shall couer them.
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- Beholde, I know what ye thinke, yea and the subtiltie that ye imagine against me.
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- For ye say where is the princes palace?
and where is the dwelling of the vngodly?
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- Haue ye not asked them that go by the way?
Doubtlesse ye cannot denie their tokens,
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- That the wicked is kept vnto the day of destruction, and the vngodly shalbe brought foorth to the day of wrath.
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- Who dare declare his way to his face?
who wil rewarde him for that he doth?
- 32
- Yet shall he be brought to his graue, and dwell among the heape [of the dead.]
- 33
- Then shal the slymie valley be sweet vnto him, all men also must folowe him, as there are innumerable gone before him.
- 34
- Howe vayne then is the comfort that ye geue me, seyng falshood remayneth in all your aunsweres?
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