speaking, there came also another, and said,
The Chaldeans made three bands,
and fell upon the camels,
and have taken them away,
yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword;
and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said,
Thy sons and thy daughters
were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house:
and, behold,
there came a great wind from the wilderness,
and smote the four corners of the house,
and it fell upon the young men,
and they are dead;
and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and
fell down upon the ground, and worshipped; and he said,
Naked came I out of my mother's womb,
and naked shall I return thither:
the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.

So the Adversary is foiled, and Job has not renounced God. A
second Council is held in Heaven; and the Adversary, being
questioned, has to admit Job's integrity, but proposes a severer
test:

Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his
life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and
his flesh, and he will renounce thee to thy face.

Again leave is given: and the Adversary smites job with the most
hideous and loathsome form of leprosy. His kinsfolk (as we learn
later) have already begun to desert and hold aloof from him as a
man marked out by God's displeasure. But now he passes out from
their midst, as one unclean from head to foot, and seats himself
on the ash-mound--that is, upon the Mezbele or heap of refuse
which accumulates outside Arab villages.

'The dung,' says Professor Moulton, `which is heaped upon
the Mezbele of the Hauran villages is not mixed with straw,
which in that warm and dry land is not needed for litter,
and it comes mostly from solid-hoofed animals, as the
flocks and oxen are left over-night in the grazing places. It
is carried in baskets in a dry state to this place ... and
usually burnt once a month.... The ashes remain.... If the
village has been inhabited for centuries the Mezbele
reaches a height far overtopping it. The winter rains reduce
it into a compact mass, and it becomes by and by a solid
hill of earth.... The Mezbele serves the inhabitants for a
watchtower, and in the sultry evenings for a place of
concourse, beca