Job 19
v1
Then Job answered,
v2
“How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?
v3
You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.
v4
If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.
v5
If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach,
v6
know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.
v7
“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice.
v8
He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.
v9
He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.
v10
He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. He has plucked my hope up like a tree.
v11
He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.
v12
His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.
v13
“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
v14
My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.
v15
Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.
v16
I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.
v17
My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
v18
Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.
v19
All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.
v20
My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
v21
“Have pity on me. Have pity on me, you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me.
v22
Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
v23
“Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
v24
That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
v25
But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth.
v26
After my skin is destroyed, then I will see God in my flesh,
v27
whom I, even I, will see on my side. My eyes will see, and not as a stranger. “My heart is consumed within me.
v28
If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me,
v29
be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”