had befallen me.  So they came where I was, and some of the men of the city with them, who showed me to them.  But they said, “This is not Jobab.”  Yet the men of the place affirmed that it was so; and after they had disputed for some time, Eliphaz called to me, “Art thou Jobab, our fellow-king?” And I, weeping and casting dust upon my head, bowed myself in token that it was I.

Then were they stricken with great astonishment and terror, and fell to the ground as it were dead; and they rent their clothes and cast off their armour, and sat down upon the ground.  And Elihu lifted up his voice and took up a lamentation over me, calling to mind all the glory of my former state, my sheep and oxen, camels and asses, my golden beds and my jewelled throne, the lamps and perfumes of my palace, and the beauty of my children, and saying, “Where is now the glory of thy kingdom?” And when he had ended his lamentation I said, “Hold your peace and I will tell you.”

“My throne is in the region beyond the world, and the glory and beauty of it is at the right hand of the Father.

“This world shall pass away and the glory of it shall perish, and they that pay heed thereto shall be overwhelmed in the overthrow of it; but my throne is in the land of the holy, and the glory of it in the age that hath no change.

“The rivers shall be dried up, and the abundance of their streams floweth down into the depths of the pit; but the rivers of my land fail not, and their streams water it for evermore.

“Kings shall pass away, and rulers be no more seen:  their names and their boasting shall be as the image in the glass; but my kingdom abideth for ever, and the glory thereof is as the glory of the chariot of the Most High.”

Then Eliphaz waxed very wroth, and said, “Come, and let us leave him to his folly.  To what purpose have we journeyed hither to comfort him, if he rails against us and says, ’Your kingdom shall be brought to nought, but mine endureth for ever’?” And he would have gone away in a rage.  But Bildad restrained him, saying, “Remember that the man is sick in body and mind; we should not deal harshly with him; it may well be that he is mad.”  And Bildad and Zophar put questions to me to discern whether I was of sound mind or not, and I answered them soberly.  And at last Zophar said, “What shall be done for thee?  Behold, we have with us the most skilful physicians that are in our kingdoms.  Wilt thou that they shall tend thee?  Peradventure thou mayest find relief at their hands.”  But I said, “My healing and my medicine shall be from the Lord, who is the Maker of physicians and of all their craft.”