complaint

Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.

If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness, and comfort myself:

My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

As for me, is my complaint to man? and if it were so, why should not my spirit be troubled?

Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning.

Attend unto me, and hear me: I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise;

I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble.

He will not despise the supplication of the fatherless; nor the widow, when she poureth out her complaint.

“Moreover, I sent you these virgins, that they may dwell with you. For I saw that they were courteous to you. You will therefore have them as assistants, that you may be the better able to keep his commands: for it is impossible that these commandments can be observed without these virgins. I see, moreover, that they abide with you willingly; but I will also instruct them not to depart at all from your house: do you only keep your house pure, as they will delight to dwell in a pure abode. For they are pure, and chaste, and industrious, and have all influence with the Lord. Therefore, if they find your house to be pure, they will remain with you; but if any defilement, even a little, befall it, they will immediately withdraw from your house. For these virgins do not at all like any defilement.” I said to him, “I hope, sir, that I will please them, so that they may always be willing to inhabit my house. And as he to whom you entrusted me has no complaint against me, so neither will they have.” He said to the Shepherd, “I see that the servant of God wishes to live, and to keep these commandments, and will place these virgins in a pure habitation.” When he had spoken these words he again delivered me to the Shepherd, and called those virgins, and said to them, “Since I see that you are willing to dwell in his house, I commend him and his house to you, asking that you withdraw not at all from it.” And the virgins heard these words with pleasure.