Job 19

Job

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, ‘Violence!’ 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 family from me;

my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.

¹⁴My relatives have gone away;

my closest friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner;

they look on me as on a stranger.

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 family.

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 only by 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 on 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.”