My desire is that Job may be tried unto the end. Job XXXIV, 36.
A vast crypt with shutters and doors closed so that the damp underground space is but dimly lighted. Fugitives, wan and careworn, are crouching and lying on the stone flooring. Some of them have gathered round an elder who is reading from the scriptures. In the background lies a wounded man, tended by a woman. Remote from the rest, sitting on a piece of masonry, and as motionless as if he were himself carved out of the rock, is Jeremiah, his face buried in his hands. He plays no part in what is going on, so that his silence is as it were a rock fixed in the current of plaints and disputes. It is evening, on the day after the taking of Jerusalem. As the elder reads, he sways his body rhythmically in time to the words, which are low and monotonous, except when he raises his voice to express despair or hope. From time to time, the others take up the responses.
The Elder
[Reading] Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock;
Thou that dwellest between the cherubims,
Shine forth! Stir up thy strength!
The Others