Job
Summary
Job Chapter 2 records the second heavenly challenge where the adversary suggests that Job will only remain faithful while his health is preserved. God allows a second trial, and Job is struck with painful boils from head to toe. Despite his extreme physical suffering and the despairing advice of his wife to "curse God and die," Job maintains his integrity, refusing to sin with his lips. The chapter ends with the arrival of Job’s three friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar: who sit in silence with him for seven days, sharing in his profound and visible grief.
On another day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and the adversary also came among them to present himself.
And the LORD said to the adversary, "Where have you come from?" He answered, "From roaming through the earth and walking back and forth in it."
Then the LORD said to the adversary, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. He still maintains his integrity, even though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason."
"Skin for skin!" the adversary replied. "A man will give everything he has for his own life."
"But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face."
The LORD said to the adversary, "Very well, he is in your hands, but you must spare his life."
So the adversary went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.
His wife said to him, "Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!"
He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.
When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognise him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven.
Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.