While I was yet speaking, there came to us my wife Sitis, clothed in
rags, and she had escaped by stealth out of the house of her master;
for he would have kept her within, fearing that the kings would call
him to account for his ill-usage of us. So when she came to us, she
threw herself down before Eliphaz and said, "Rememberest thou,
Eliphaz and thy fellows, how I looked and how I was attired in the
former days? Look now and see in what guise I go about." And they
were cut to the heart and wept, but knew not what to say; only
Eliphaz took off his purple robe and put it about her shoulders. And
she besought them, saying, "I pray you, command your servants to dig
among the ruins of the house that fell upon our children, and seek
out their bones that they may be buried and a memorial set up; for
till this day we have never been able to do so because of the cost.
Consider, I beseech you, what I suffer that have lost ten children,
and not one of them is given to burial." So they prepared to dig; but
I prevented them, and said, "Labour not in vain; ye will not find my
children, for they have been taken up into the heavens by the King
that created them." Again they said, "Who would not say that thou art
mad? Thy children are taken up into heaven, sayest thou? Show us now
what thou meanest."
I said, therefore, "Raise me up that I may stand on my feet." And
they took each an arm and raised me, and I stood up and made
supplication to the Father, and then said to them, "Lift up your eyes
and look towards the east." And they looked, and beheld my children
crowned with glory in the heavens, and above them the glory of the
Most High. Which when Sitis my wife saw, she fell upon her face and
worshipped, and said, "Now know I that there is remembrance of me
with God. I will go now into the city and rest a little, and refresh
myself for my labours of the morrow." So she went into the city, and
entered into the stable of the kine that had been hers, and had been
taken from her by those that employed her; and she lay down by one of
the mangers and slept, having her mind at rest, and so died. And on
the morrow her master sought her, and did not find her; and at last
entering into the stable, he saw her lying dead there, and ran out
and summoned men to him; and all the city came and saw her lying in
the stable, and the beasts standing about her, lowing and making
lamentation over her. Then they carried her forth and buried her
beside the place of the house that had fallen upon her children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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