Job 19

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¹Then Job answered and said,

²“How long will you make me suffer and break me into pieces with words?

³These ten times you have reproached me; you are not ashamed that you have treated me harshly.

⁴If it is indeed true that I have erred, my error remains my own concern.

⁵If indeed you will exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me,

⁶then you should know that God has done wrong to me and has caught me in his net.

⁷See, I cry out, “Violence!” but I get no answer. I call out for help, but there is no justice.

⁸He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness in my path.

⁹He has stripped me of my glory, and he has taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone; he has pulled up my hope like a tree.

¹¹He has also kindled his wrath against me; he regards me as one of his adversaries.

¹²His troops come on together; they cast up siege mounds against me and encamp around my tent.

¹³He has put my brothers far from me; my acquaintances are wholly alienated from me.

¹⁴My kinsfolk have failed me; my close friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵Those who once stayed as guests in my house and my female servants regard me as a stranger; I am an alien in their sight.

¹⁶I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer although I entreat him with my mouth.

¹⁷My breath is offensive to my wife; I am even disgusting to those who were born from my mother's womb.

¹⁸Even young children despise me; if I rise to speak, they speak against me.

¹⁹All my familiar friends abhor me; those whom I love have turned against me.

²⁰My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh; I survive only by the skin of my teeth.

²¹Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, my friends, for the hand of God has touched me.

²²Why do you pursue me like God does? Will you ever be satisfied with my flesh?

²³Oh, that my words were now written down! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴Oh, that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!

²⁵But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at last he will stand on the earth;

²⁶after my skin, that is, this body, is destroyed, then in my flesh I will see God.

²⁷I will see him with my own eyes—I, and not someone else. My heart fails within me.

²⁸If you say, 'How we will persecute him! The root of his troubles lies in him,'

²⁹then be afraid of the sword, because wrath brings the punishment of the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”