each one is so close to the next ¹  that no air can come between them.

They were distressed, ¹  because each one had been ²  so confident; they arrived there, ³  but were disappointed.

Now his sons used to go ¹  and hold ²  a feast in the house of each one in turn, ³  and they would send and invite ⁴  their three ⁵  sisters to eat and to drink with them.

But when they gazed intently ¹  from a distance but did not recognize ²  him, they began to weep loudly. Each of them tore his robes, and they threw dust into the air over their heads. ³ 

So they came to him, all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they dined ¹  with him in his house. They comforted him and consoled him for all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver ²  and a gold ring. ³ 

When Job’s three friends heard about all this calamity that had happened to him, each of them came from his own country ²  – Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. ³  They met together ⁴  to come to show sympathy ⁵  for him and to console ⁶  him.

They lock tightly together, one to the next; ¹  they cling together and cannot be separated.

“Surely now you count my steps; ²  then you would not mark ³  my sin. ⁴ 

With his hands ¹  he covers ²  the lightning, and directs it against its target.

For he ¹  is not a human being like I am, that ²  I might answer him, that we might come ³  together in judgment.

They reap fodder ¹  in the field, and glean ²  in the vineyard of the wicked.

When ¹  the days of their feasting were finished, ²  Job would send ³  for them and sanctify ⁴  them; he would get up early ⁵  in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to ⁶  the number of them all. For Job thought, “Perhaps ⁷  my children ⁸  have sinned and cursed ⁹  God in their hearts.” This was Job’s customary practice.