Job 31

‘I said to myself: I must never

look at a young girl and desire her.

₂How will God reward me if I do that?

The Almighty God in heaven

will not reward me or give me something good.

₃I want God to punish bad people,

because people who do bad things must suffer.

₄God knows how I have lived,

and He knows everything that I have done.

₅I was not false and hypocritical.

₆If God tests me, He will see

that I have done nothing wrong.

₇I have not stopped

doing what is right,

and I have never desired to take anything

from other people that I wanted to have.

My hands are pure.

₈If my hands have been impure,

then other people must eat

the wheat that I have sown,

and they must pull out the plants

that I have planted.

₉I did not desire the wife of another man.

I did not wait to go and sleep with her secretly.

₁₀If I did, then my wife must go

and serve another man

and he can have sex with her,

₁₁because then I have done

something shameful and very wrong

and I want God to punish me.

₁₂Adultery would be like a fire

that would burn and destroy me.

₁₃If I have been unfair

to my slave or slave woman

when they complained against me,

₁₄what will I do when God judges me?

What will I say to Him when

He asks me to explain what I have done?

I will not be able to answer Him.

₁₅He made my slaves and me.

It is the same God who made us.

₁₆When poor people wanted something,

I have never said no,

and I have never sent a widow away hungry.

₁₇I have not eaten my food alone.

I always gave some of it to orphans.

₁₈Since I was young,

I have been like a father to orphans

and have always helped widows.

₁₉When I saw poor people with no clothes

or nothing to cover them

when they went to sleep,

₂₀I gave them clothes

made of the wool of my sheep

and they thanked me.

₂₁I have never hurt an orphan

with my fist,

even when I knew that I would win

against him in court at the gate.

₂₂If I have hurt an orphan,

then someone must come

and break my arms and

pull them out of my shoulders.

₂₃I was afraid that God would punish me,

and I was afraid to stand in front of Him,

the King, and that is why I could not

do something bad like that.

₂₄I have never trusted money

or gold to get a good life.

₂₅I was never proud when

I was rich and owned a lot of things.

₂₆I have never worshipped

the bright sun or the beautiful moon.

₂₇I have never been seduced

to blow kisses to the sun or moon

or to serve them when no one was looking.

₂₈If I have done that,

then I have sinned

and I would have asked God to punish me

because then I would have been false to Him.

₂₉I have never been happy

when my enemies have fallen down

or laughed when they have had trouble.

₃₀I have not sinned by cursing those people.

₃₁The people who came into my house

never went away hungry.

₃₂I did not let strangers sleep outside.

I opened my door to people

who walked past my house.

₃₃I have not tried to hide my sins

like other people do,

so that only I knew about them.

₃₄I was not afraid of

what people would say about me,

and I was not afraid that other families

would accuse me.

I did not keep quiet

and stay inside my house.

₃₅I wish that someone would listen to me.

I will sign my name here and promise

that I am speaking the truth.

I want the Almighty God to answer me.

The person who wants to accuse me

must write down what I have done wrong.

₃₆I will show everything

that he has written to everyone.

I will carry it on my shoulders

and on my head.

₃₇I will explain everything that I have done,

and I will stand in front of that person

like a leader who is not afraid of anything.

₃₈I have worked in the ground and ploughed,

but I had to pay for the wheat that I harvested.

₃₉The land belonged to other people,

but I have paid them and

I did not oppress the people

who worked hard on the land.

₄₀If I had done wrong to them,

then thorns and weeds

would have grown

and not wheat or barley.’