Job 2:1–3:26 (NIV84)

¹ On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. ² And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.” ³ Then the Lord said to Satan, “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. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” ⁴ “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. ⁵ But stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” ⁶ The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.” ⁷ So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. ⁸ Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. ⁹ His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!” ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ 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. ¹² When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. ¹³ 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. ¹ After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. ² He said: ³ “May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, ‘A boy is born!’ ⁴ That day—may it turn to darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine upon it. ⁵ May darkness and deep shadow claim it once more; may a cloud settle over it; may blackness overwhelm its light. ⁶ That night—may thick darkness seize it; may it not be included among the days of the year nor be entered in any of the months. ⁷ May that night be barren; may no shout of joy be heard in it. ⁸ May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan. ⁹ May its morning stars become dark; may it wait for daylight in vain and not see the first rays of dawn, ¹⁰ for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes. ¹¹ “Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? ¹² Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed? ¹³ For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest ¹⁴ with kings and counselors of the earth, who built for themselves places now lying in ruins, ¹⁵ with rulers who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. ¹⁶ Or why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child, like an infant who never saw the light of day? ¹⁷ There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest. ¹⁸ Captives also enjoy their ease; they no longer hear the slave driver’s shout. ¹⁹ The small and the great are there, and the slave is freed from his master. ²⁰ “Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, ²¹ to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure, ²² who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave? ²³ Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? ²⁴ For sighing comes to me instead of food; my groans pour out like water. ²⁵ What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. ²⁶ I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

John 4:1–26 (NIV84)

¹ The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, ² although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³ When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. ⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. ⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” ¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” ¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” ¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” ¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” ²¹ Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” ²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” ²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”