Job 19

¹Then Job answered and said, ²How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words? ³These ten times have ye reproached me: ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me.⁴And be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself. ⁵If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach: ⁶Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net. ⁷Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.

⁸He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths. ⁹He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. ¹⁰He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree. ¹¹He hath also kindled his wrath against me, and he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies. ¹²His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle. ¹³He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me. ¹⁴My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. ¹⁵They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight. ¹⁶I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth. ¹⁷My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body.¹⁸Yea, young children despised me; I arose, and they spake against me.¹⁹All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me. ²⁰My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. ²¹Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me. ²²Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

²³Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! ²⁴That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! ²⁵For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: ²⁶And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: ²⁷Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me. ²⁸But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me? ²⁹Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.