Job, the Good Man

1 A man named Job lived in the land of Uz [^Ceast of Israel in Edom (present-day Jordan); Lam. 4:21]. He was an ·honest [innocent; blameless; Prov. 2:7, 21] and ·innocent [virtuous; Prov. 1:3] man; he ·honored [feared; respected] God [28:28; Prov. 1:7] and stayed away from evil [^Cthese terms are used to describe the wise in Proverbs]. ² Job had seven sons and three daughters [^Cindicating a large and complete family]. ³ He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred teams of oxen, and five hundred female donkeys. He also had a large number of servants. He was the ·greatest [or richest] man among all the people of the East [^Cthe expected reward of wisdom].

⁴ Job’s sons took turns holding feasts [^Lon their day; ^Cperhaps birthday celebrations] in their homes and invited their sisters to eat and drink with them. ⁵ After a feast was over, Job would send and have them ·made clean [consecrated; made holy]. Early in the morning Job would offer a burnt offering [^Can atonement offering; Lev. 1:1–17] for each of them, because he thought, “My children may have sinned and ·cursed [^Lblessed; ^Ca euphemism for “cursed”] God in their hearts.” Job did this every time.