“Now a word was secretly ¹  brought ²  to me, and my ear caught ³  a whisper ⁴  of it.

“If someone ¹  should attempt ²  a word with you, will you be impatient? ³  But who can refrain from speaking ⁴ ?

Are God’s consolations ¹  too trivial for you; ²  or a word spoken ³  in gentleness to you?

Then they sat down with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, yet no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his pain ¹  was very great. ² 

“They are dismayed ²  and cannot answer any more; they have nothing left to say. ³ 

And Job took up his discourse again: ¹ 

Then Job continued ²  his speech:

After I had spoken, they did not respond; my words fell on them drop by drop. ¹ 

But if only God would speak, ¹  if only he would open his lips against you, ² 

“And now I have become their taunt song; I have become a byword ¹  among them.

“Indeed, my eyes have seen all this, ²  my ears have heard and understood it.

He has made me ¹  a byword ²  to people, I am the one in whose face they spit. ³ 

I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my allotted portion. ¹ 

Destruction ¹  and Death say, ‘With our ears we have heard a rumor about where it can be found.’ ² 

“For God speaks, the first time in one way, the second time in another, though a person does not perceive ¹  it.

If they obey and serve him, they live out their days in prosperity and their years in pleasantness. ¹ 

After that a voice roars; he thunders with an exalted voice, and he does not hold back his lightning bolts ¹  when his voice is heard.

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye has seen you. ¹ 

Indeed, these are but the outer fringes of his ways! ¹  How faint is the whisper ²  we hear of him! But who can understand the thunder of his power?”

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.