Chapter 19

¹Then Job answered,

²“How long will you torment me,

And crush me with words?

³You have reproached me ten times.

You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.

⁴If it is true that I have erred,

My error remains with myself.

⁵If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me,

And plead against me my reproach;

⁶Know now that God has subverted me,

And has surrounded me with his net.

⁷“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard:

I cry for help, but there is no justice.

⁸He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass,

And has set darkness in my paths.

⁹He has stripped me of my glory,

And taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone.

My hope he has plucked up like a tree.

¹¹He has also kindled his wrath against me.

He counts me among his adversaries.

¹²His troops come on together,

Build a siege ramp against me,

And encamp around my tent.

¹³“He has put my brothers far from me.

My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

¹⁴My relatives have gone away.

My familiar friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger.

I am an alien in their sight.

¹⁶I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer;

I beg him with my mouth.

¹⁷My breath is offensive to my wife.

I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.

¹⁸Even young children despise me.

If I arise, they speak against me.

¹⁹All my familiar friends abhor me.

They whom I loved have turned against me.

²⁰My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh.

I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

²¹“Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends;

For the hand of God has touched me.

²²Why do you persecute me as God,

And are not satisfied with my flesh?

²³“Oh that my words were now written!

Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴That with an iron pen and lead

They were engraved in the rock forever!

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

In the end, he will stand upon the earth.

²⁶After my skin is destroyed,

Then in my flesh shall I see God,

²⁷Whom I, even I, shall see on my side.

My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger.

“My heart is consumed within me.

²⁸If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’

Because the root of the matter is found in me,

²⁹Be afraid of the sword,

For wrath brings the punishments of the sword,

That you may know there is a judgment.”