Chapter 19

¹ Then Job answered and said,

² How long will ye vex my soul, and destroy me with words? only know that the Lord has dealt with me thus. ³ Ye speak against me; ye do not feel for me, but bear hard upon me. ⁴ Yea verily, I have erred in truth, (but the error abides with myself) in having spoken words which it was not right to speak; and my words err, and are unreasonable. ⁵ But alas! for ye magnify yourselves against me, and insult me with reproach. ⁶ Know then that it is the Lord that has troubled me, and has raised his bulwark against me. ⁷ Behold, I ¹laugh at reproach; I will not speak: or I will cry out, but there is nowhere judgment. ⁸ I am fenced round about, and can by no means escape: he has set darkness ²before my face. ⁹ And he has stripped me of my glory, and has taken the crown from my head. ¹⁰ He has torn me around about, and I am gone: and he has cut off my hope like a tree. ¹¹ And he has dreadfully handled me in anger, and has counted me for an enemy. ¹² His troops also came upon me with one accord, liars in wait compassed my ways.

¹³ My brethren have stood aloof from me; they have recognized strangers rather than me: and my friends have become pitiless. ¹⁴ My nearest of kin have not acknowledged me, and they that knew my name, have forgotten me. ¹⁵ As for ³my household, and my maid-servants, I was a stranger before them. ¹⁶ I called my servant, and he hearkened not; and my mouth intreated him. ¹⁷ And I besought my wife, and ⁴earnestly intreated the sons of my concubines. ¹⁸ But they rejected me for ever; whenever I rise up, they speak against me. ¹⁹ They that saw me abhorred me: the very persons whom I had loved, rose up against me. ²⁰ My flesh is corrupt under my skin, and my bones are held in my teeth. ²¹ Pity me, pity me, O friends; for it is the hand of the Lord that has touched me. ²² Wherefore do ye persecute me as also the Lord does, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

²³ For ⁵oh that my words were written, and that they were recorded in a book forever, ²⁴ with an iron pen and lead, or graven in the rocks! ²⁵ For I know that he is eternal who is about to deliver me, ²⁶ and to raise up upon the earth my ⁶skin that endures these sufferings: for these things have been accomplished to me of the Lord; ²⁷ which I am conscious of in myself, which mine eye has seen, and not another, but all have been fulfilled to me in my bosom.

²⁸ But if ye shall also say, What shall we say before him, and so find the root of the matter in him? ²⁹ Do ye also beware of ⁷deceit: for wrath will come upon transgressors; and then shall they know where their ⁸substance is.