Job 19

Job’s Sixth Speech: A Response to Bildad

¹Then Job spoke again:

²“How long will you torture me?

How long will you try to crush me with your words?

³You have already insulted me ten times.

You should be ashamed of treating me so badly.

⁴Even if I have sinned,

that is my concern, not yours.

⁵You think you’re better than I am,

using my humiliation as evidence of my sin.

⁶But it is God who has wronged me,

capturing me in his net.^a

⁷“I cry out, ‘Help!’ but no one answers me.

I protest, but there is no justice.

⁸God has blocked my way so I cannot move.

He has plunged my path into darkness.

⁹He has stripped me of my honor

and removed the crown from my head.

¹⁰He has demolished me on every side, and I am finished.

He has uprooted my hope like a fallen tree.

¹¹His fury burns against me;

he counts me as an enemy.

¹²His troops advance.

They build up roads to attack me.

They camp all around my tent.

¹³“My relatives stay far away,

and my friends have turned against me.

¹⁴My family is gone,

and my close friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵My servants and maids consider me a stranger.

I am like a foreigner to them.

¹⁶When I call my servant, he doesn’t come;

I have to plead with him!

¹⁷My breath is repulsive to my wife.

I am rejected by my own family.

¹⁸Even young children despise me.

When I stand to speak, they turn their backs on me.

¹⁹My close friends detest me.

Those I loved have turned against me.

²⁰I have been reduced to skin and bones

and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth.

²¹“Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy,

for the hand of God has struck me.

²²Must you also persecute me, like God does?

Haven’t you chewed me up enough?

²³“Oh, that my words could be recorded.

Oh, that they could be inscribed on a monument,

²⁴carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead,

engraved forever in the rock.

²⁵“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,

and he will stand upon the earth at last.

²⁶And after my body has decayed,

yet in my body I will see God!^b

²⁷I will see him for myself.

Yes, I will see him with my own eyes.

I am overwhelmed at the thought!

²⁸“How dare you go on persecuting me,

saying, ‘It’s his own fault’?

²⁹You should fear punishment yourselves,

for your attitude deserves punishment.

Then you will know that there is indeed a judgment.”