Job 19

¹ And Job made answer and said,

² How long will you make my life bitter, crushing me with words?

³ Ten times now you have made sport of me; it gives you no sense of shame to do me wrong.

⁴ And, truly, if I have been in error, the effect of my error is only on myself.

⁵ If you make yourselves great against me, using my punishment as an argument against me,

⁶ Be certain that it is God who has done me wrong, and has taken me in his net.

⁷ Truly, I make an outcry against the violent man, but there is no answer: I give a cry for help, but no one takes up my cause.

⁸ My way is walled up by him so that I may not go by: he has made my roads dark.

⁹ He has put off my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰ I am broken down by him on every side, and I am gone; my hope is uprooted like a tree.

¹¹ His wrath is burning against me, and I am to him as one of his haters.

¹² His armies come on together, they make their road high against me, and put up their tents round mine.

¹³ He has taken my brothers far away from me; they have seen my fate and have become strange to me.

¹⁴ My relations and my near friends have given me up, and those living in my house have put me out of their minds.

¹⁵ I am strange to my women-servants, and seem to them as one from another country.

¹⁶ At my cry my servant gives me no answer, and I have to make a prayer to him.

¹⁷ My breath is strange to my wife, and I am disgusting to the offspring of my mother’s body.

¹⁸ Even young children have no respect for me; when I get up their backs are turned on me.

¹⁹ All the men of my circle keep away from me; and those dear to me are turned against me.

²⁰ My bones are joined to my skin, and I have got away with my flesh in my teeth.

²¹ Have pity on me, have pity on me, O my friends! for the hand of God is on me.

²² Why are you cruel to me, like God, for ever saying evil against me?

²³ If only my words might be recorded! if they might be put in writing in a book!

²⁴ And with an iron pen and lead be cut into the rock for ever!

²⁵ But I am certain that he who will take up my cause is living, and that in time to come he will take his place on the dust;

²⁶ And … without my flesh I will see God;

²⁷ Whom I will see on my side, and not as one strange to me. My heart is broken with desire.

²⁸ If you say, How cruel we will be to him! because the root of sin is clearly in him:

²⁹ Be in fear of the sword, for the sword is the punishment for such things, so that you may be certain that there is a judge.