Job's wife tempts him and Job rebukes her

Yet even then he set a limit and a measure to his grief, and he adorned what was happening with those devout words. He said, 'The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so it has happened' (Job 1:21). He was all but crying out: 'I was called a father for as long as the One who made me so willed. He has chosen to strip away the crown from my offspring again; I do not fight over what belongs to Him. Let the Master's will prevail. He is the fashioner of the race, and I am an instrument. Why should I, a servant, be pointlessly distressed and find fault with a verdict I cannot overturn?' With such words the righteous man was striking the devil down with darts. But when the enemy saw that he was victorious again and could not be shaken by any of these things, he brought the device of trial against his very flesh. He scourged his body with unspeakable blows and made springs of worms pour out from it. He brought the man down from the thrones of his kingdom and seated him on a dung heap. Yet even when struck by such sufferings, Job remained unmoved. While his body was being torn, he kept the treasure of his devotion inviolate in the hidden place of his soul. So the enemy, having nothing left to do, returned to the memory of his ancient plot. He dragged down the woman's mind into an impious and blasphemous resolve, and through her he tried to shake the athlete. She, despairing at the long duration, stood before the righteous man, bent down, striking her hands together at what she saw, reproaching him for the fruits of his devotion. She recounted the old prosperity of their household and pointed to the present evils—what a life he had received from what circumstances, and what reward he had received from the Master for his many sacrifices. She kept saying words worthy of women's faintheartedness, but capable of troubling any man and overturning even a noble mind: 'I wander about as a vagabond and a menial servant. I who was a queen am a slave, and I am forced to look to the hands of my own household servants. I who once fed many am now glad just to be fed from what belongs to others.' And she said that it would be good and useful to use impious words and cut himself off from the earth, sharpening the sword of the Creator's wrath, or, by enduring the horrors, to prolong the labor of the contest for himself and the woman who lived with him. But he was grieved by these words as by none of his earlier evils. His gaze filled with anger, and he turned to the woman as if to an enemy. What does he say? 'Why have you spoken like one of the foolish women? Put away your counsel, woman. How long will you insult the life we share by what you say? You have misrepresented my conduct in a way I never wished. You have slandered my life by what you have spoken. I now consider myself half guilty of impiety, since marriage made the two of us one body, and you have fallen into blasphemy. If we received good things from the Lord's hand, shall we not endure the bad?' (Job 2:10). Remember the good things that came to you before. Weigh the better things against the worse. No human being's life is entirely blessed.