Contemplative Bible Reading

Job 2:8-9 (New Living Translation)

8 Job scraped his skin with a piece of broken pottery as he sat among the ashes. 9 His wife said to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.”

Job’s wife, who was quite loyal to him, encourages him to curse God and die. “Why,” she asks, “are you still trying to maintain your integrity?” She was disgusted with her husband in that he once pledged worship of Jehovah God and would not, in the face of all these bad events, reverse course. He had integrity; he stayed faithful to God.

I value integrity—sometimes to a fault or to occasions when it hurts me. Perhaps I am simply stubborn. Whatever the case may be, I admire Job for sitting on the ground among the ashes and scraping his skin with broken pottery. Extreme? Yes. Admirable? At least for me, yes.