Job 19 / 42
- 1Then Job replied:
- 2"How long will you torment me and crush me with words?
- 3Ten times now you have reproached me; shamelessly you attack me.
- 4If it is true that I have gone astray, my error remains my concern alone.
- 5If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me,
- 6then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me.
- 7"Though I cry, 'I've been wronged!' I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice.
- 8He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; he has shrouded my paths in darkness.
- 9He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.
- 10He tears me down on every side till I am gone; he uproots my hope like a tree.
- 11His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies.
- 12His troops advance in force; they build a siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.
- 13"He has alienated my brothers from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
- 14My kinsmen have gone away; my friends have forgotten me.
- 15My guests and my maidservants count me a stranger; they look upon me as an alien.
- 16I summon my servant, but he does not answer, though I beg him with my own mouth.
- 17My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own brothers.
- 18Even the little boys scorn me; when I appear, they ridicule me.
- 19All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me.
- 20I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.
- 21"Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.
- 22Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?
- 23"Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll,
- 24that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever!
- 25I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
- 26And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;
- 27I myself will see him with my own eyes-I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
- 28"If you say, 'How we will hound him, since the root of the trouble lies in him, '
- 29you should fear the sword yourselves; for wrath will bring punishment by the sword, and then you will know that there is judgment. "