CHAPTER 31
1 I made [a] covenant with mine eyes, that I should not think on a virgin.
2 For what part should God above have in me, and what heritage should Almighty God of high things have in me?
3 Whether perdition is not to a wicked man, and alienation of God is to men working wickedness?
4 Whether he beholdeth not my ways, and numbereth all my goings?
5 If I have gone in vanity, and my foot hath hasted to go in guile [or treachery],
6 God weigh me in a just balance, and know he my simpleness.
7 If my steps have bowed from the way; and if mine eyes have pursued [or followed] mine heart, consenting to lust, and if a spot have cleaved to mine hands;
8 sow I, and another eat, and my generation be drawn out by the root.
9 And if mine heart was deceived on a woman, and if I have set ambush at the door of my friend;
10 my wife be then the whore of another man, and other men be bowed down upon her.
11 For this is unleaveful, and the most wickedness.
12 Fire is devouring till to wasting, and drawing up by the root all generations.
13 If I despised to take doom with my servant and with mine handmaid, when they strived against me.
14 What soothly shall I do, when God shall rise up to deem? and when he shall ask, what shall I answer to him?
15 Whether he, that wrought also him, made not me in the womb, and one God formed me in the womb?
16 If I denied to poor men that, that they would, and if I made the eyes of a widow to abide;
17 if I alone ate my morsel, and a fatherless child ate not thereof;
18 for merciful doing increased with me, from my young childhood, and it went out of my mother’s womb with me;
19 if I despised a man passing forth by me, for he had not a cloth, and a poor man without covering;
20 if his sides blessed not me, and were not made hot of the fleece of my sheep;
21 if I raised up mine hand upon a fatherless child, yea, when I saw me the higher in the gate;
22 my shoulder fall from his joint, and mine arm with his bones be all-broken.
23 For ever[more] I dreaded God, as waves waxing great upon me; and I might not bear his burden.
24 If I guessed gold my strength, and I said to pured gold, Thou art my trust;
25 if I was glad on my many riches, and for mine hand found full many things;
26 if I saw the sun, when it shined, and the moon going clearly;
27 and if mine heart was glad in private, and if I kissed mine hand with my mouth;
28 the which is the most wickedness, and denying against the highest God;
29 if I had joy at the falling of him, that hated me, and if I joyed fully [or full out joyed], that evil had found him;
30 for I gave not my throat to do sin, that I should assail and curse his soul;
31 if the men of my tabernacle said not, Who giveth, that we be [ful] filled of his fleshes?
32 a pilgrim dwelled not withoutforth; my door was open to a way-goer or a way-faring man;
33 if I as [a] man hid my sin, and covered my wickedness in my bosom;
34 if I dreaded at [the] full great multitude, and if despising of neigh-bours made me afeared; and not more, I was still, and went not out of the door;
35 who giveth then an helper to me, that Almighty God hear my desire? that he that deemeth, write a book,
36 that I bear it on my shoulder, and encompass it as a crown to me?
37 By all my degrees I shall pronounce it, and I shall as offering offer it to the prince.
38 If my land crieth against me, and his furrows weep with it;
39 if I ate fruits thereof without money, and I tormented the soul of earth-tillers of it;
40 a briar grow to me for wheat, and a thorn for barley.