Job, 42

1. This was the answer Job gave to Yahweh:

2. I know that you are all-powerful: what you conceive, you can perform.

3. I was the man who misrepresented your intentions with my ignorant words. You have told me about great works that I cannot understand, about marvels which are beyond me, of which I know nothing.

4. (Listen, please, and let me speak: I am going to ask the questions, and you are to inform me.)

5. Before, I knew you only by hearsay but now, having seen you with my own eyes,

6. I retract what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes.

7. When Yahweh had finished saying this to Job, he said to Eliphaz of Teman, 'I burn with anger against you and your two friends, for not having spoken correctly about me as my servant Job has done.

8. So now find seven bullocks and seven rams, and take them back with you to my servant Job and make a burnt offering for yourselves, while Job, my servant, offers prayers for you. I shall show him favour and shall not inflict my displeasure on you for not having spoken about me correctly, as my servant Job had done.'

9. Eliphaz of Teman, Bildad of Shuah and Zophar of Naamath went away to do as Yahweh had ordered, and Yahweh listened to Job with favour.

10. And Yahweh restored Job's condition, while Job was interceding for his friends. More than that, Yahweh gave him double what he had before.

11. And all his brothers and all his sisters and all his friends of former times came to see him. Over dinner in his house, they showed their sympathy and comforted him for all the evils Yahweh had inflicted on him. Each of them gave him a silver coin, and each a gold ring.

12. Yahweh blessed Job's latter condition even more than his former one. He came to own fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand she-donkeys.

13. He had seven sons and three daughters;

14. his first daughter he called 'Turtledove', the second 'Cassia' and the third 'Mascara'.

15. Throughout the land there were no women as beautiful as the daughters of Job. And their father gave them inheritance rights like their brothers.

16. After this, Job lived for another one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and his children's children to the fourth generation.

17. Then, old and full of days, Job died.