Job 2
The full text of Job 2 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
1 Again there came a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and the Adversary also came among them to present himself before the LORD.
2 The LORD said to the Adversary, "Where have you come from?" The Adversary answered the LORD and said, "From roaming about on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it."
3 The LORD said to the Adversary, "Have you set your mind on my servant Job? For there is no one like him on earth — a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still holds fast to his integrity, although you incited me against him to swallow him up without cause."
4 The Adversary answered the LORD and said, "Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life."
5 "But stretch out your hand now and strike his bone and his flesh — surely he will curse you to your face."
6 The LORD said to the Adversary, "Very well, he is in your hand. Only spare his life."
7 So the Adversary went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with terrible sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
8 He took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself with, and he sat among the ashes.
9 His wife said to him, "Are you still holding fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!"
10 He said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Should we accept good from God and not accept adversity?" In all this, Job did not sin with his lips.
11 Now when Job's three friends heard about all this calamity that had come upon him, they came each from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They agreed to meet together to come and mourn with him and comfort him.
12 When they lifted up their eyes from a distance and did not recognize him, they raised their voices and wept. Each one tore his robe, and they threw dust on their heads toward the sky.
13 They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.
Translation notes (11)
- Job 2:1a Bene ha'elohim (בני האלהים), 'sons of God', denotes the divine council. Ha-satan (השטן), 'the adversary', bears the article and functions as a title rather than a proper name in Job. Compared with 1:6, the Hebrew adds lehityatzev (להתיצב), 'to present himself', explicitly including the Adversary among those appearing before the LORD.
- Job 2:3a Hebrew 'wattesiteni vo lebal'o khinnam' — 'you incited me against him to destroy/swallow him for nothing.' God acknowledges complicity.
- Job 2:4a Hebrew 'or be'ad or' — an obscure proverbial expression; possibly 'skin in exchange for skin,' meaning one will sacrifice another's skin to save one's own.
- Job 2:6a The Hebrew term nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ), literally 'soul' or 'life', here emphasizes the explicit prohibition against taking Job's life, distinguishing it from the previous affliction.
- Job 2:7a Hebrew 'shekhin ra' — 'evil/malignant boils/inflammation'; same term used for the Egyptian plague (Exod 9:9)
- Job 2:8a Hebrew cheres, 'potsherd', denotes a shard of broken pottery, the refuse of a household. Sitting in ashes was a recognized posture of mourning and self-abasement in the ancient Near East (compare Jonah 3:6). The Septuagint expands the scene, placing Job on the dung heap outside the city, an image that shaped later tradition.
- Job 2:9a Hebrew 'barekh elohim' — literally 'bless God,' the same euphemism (see 1:5 note). Her words echo the Adversary's prediction.
- Job 2:10a Hebrew 'nebalot' — 'foolish/senseless women,' connected to moral folly (nabal), not mere stupidity.
- Job 2:10b The qualifier 'with his lips' is notable — the narrator leaves open whether his thoughts remained pure.
- Job 2:12a The Hebrew lo hikkiruhu, 'they did not recognize him', indicates that Job's disease had disfigured him beyond recognition. Tearing the robe and casting dust on the head were conventional gestures of grief in the ancient Near East (compare Joshua 7:6; Lamentations 2:10); throwing the dust 'toward the sky' may intensify the rite, directing the lament heavenward.
- Job 2:13a A seven-day period of mourning was the established convention in ancient Israel, observed for Jacob (Genesis 50:10) and for Saul (1 Samuel 31:13); the friends thus treat Job as one already dead. The Hebrew phrase gadal hakke'ev me'od, literally 'the pain had grown very great', explains their silence: comforters customarily waited for the mourner to speak first, as Job does in the next chapter.
About this translation
The Trinity Bible Version (TBV) is a new translation of the Bible prepared by Trinity Bible — rendered from the original Hebrew and faithful to the earliest and most reliable manuscripts. Finished in 2026, it is the most modern English Bible translation you can read today, and it is available only through Trinity Bible. All 66 books, including Job, are free to read on this site.
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