Study Article 49. This article will be studied during the week of February 9th through 15th.

The book of Job can help you when you give counsel. Theme text,

Now, Job, please hear my words. Job 33.1.

Song 44, A Prayer of the Lowly One.

Focus.

How the Book of Job teaches us to give effective counsel.

Paragraphs 1 and 2 question.

What challenge did Job's three companions in Elihu face?

The news spreads like wildfire among the people of the East.

Job, a man known far and wide for his riches, has lost everything.

When three of Job's companions, Eliphaz,

Bildad, and Zofar, learn what has happened to Job, they journey to us in order to comfort him. But they are not prepared for what they see when they arrive. Imagine the scene.

In a sense, everything that Job possessed has been taken from him.

His vast herds of sheep, cattle, camels, and donkeys are gone.

His children have been killed, and most of his servants have been slaughtered.

And the house where Job's children were killed

lies in ruins. As if that were not bad enough, Job is personally affected. His body is now

covered with painful boils. From a distance, the three men see Job dejected and sitting in ashes.

How do they react? For some seven days, they do not say a word to this man who is in great pain.

At one point, a younger man named Elihu arrives and sits down nearby.

Job finally breaks the silence by cursing the day he was born and wishing for death. Clearly,

Job needs help. What these men say, and they say it will prove whether they are really Job's

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