a lazar [leper] and was cast out and sat on the dunghill.  Then came his wife to him and said:  Yet thou abidest in thy simpleness, forsake thy God and bless him no more, and go die.  Then Job said to her:  Thou hast spoken like a foolish woman; if we have received and taken good things of the hand of our Lord, why shall we not sustain and suffer evil things?  In all these things Job sinned not with his lips.  Then three men that were friends of Job, hearing what harm was happed and come to Job, came ever each one from his place to him, that one was named Eliphas the Temanite, another Bildad the Shuhite, and the third, Zophar Naamathite.  And when they saw him from far they knew him not, and crying they wept.  They came for to comfort him, and when they considered his misery they tare their clothes and cast dust on their heads, and sat by him seven days and seven nights, and no man spake to him a word, seeing his sorrow.  Then after that Job and they talked and spake together of his sorrow and misery, of which S. Gregory hath made a great book called:  The morals of S. Gregory, which is a noble book and a great work.

But I pass over all the matters and return unto the end, how God restored Job again to prosperity.  It was so that when these three friends of Job had been long with Job, and had said many things each of them to Job, and Job again to them, our Lord was wroth with these three men and said to them:  Ye have not spoken rightfully, as my servant Job hath spoken.  Take ye therefore seven bulls and seven wethers and go to my servant Job and offer ye sacrifice for you.  Job my servant shall pray for you.  I shall receive his prayer and shall take his visage.  They went forth and did as our Lord commanded them.  And our Lord beheld the visage of Job, and saw his penance when he prayed for his friends.  And our Lord added to Job double of all that Job had possessed.  All his brethren came to him, and all his sisters, and all they that tofore had known him, and ate with him in his house, and moved their heads upon him, and comforted him upon all the evil that God had sent to him.  And each of them gave him a sheep and a gold ring for his ears.  Our Lord blessed more Job in his last days than he did in the beginning.  And he had then after fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, one thousand asses.  And he had seven sons and three daughters.  And the first daughter’s name was Jemima, the second Kezia, and the third Keren-happuch.  There was nowhere found in the world so fair women as were the daughters of Job.  Their father Job gave to them heritage among their brethren, and thus Job by his patience gat so much love of God, that he was restored double of all his losses.  And Job lived after, one hundred and forty years, and saw his sons and the sons of his sons unto the fourth generation, and died an old man, and full of days.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB