Job 19

¹ And Job answereth and saith: —

² Till when do ye afflict my soul, And bruise me with words?

³ These ten times ye put me to shame, ye blush not. Ye make yourselves strange to me —

⁴ And also — truly, I have erred, With me doth my error remain.

⁵ If, truly, over me ye magnify yourselves, And decide against me my reproach;

⁶ Know now, that God turned me upside down, And His net against me hath set round,

⁷ Lo, I cry out — violence, and am not answered, I cry aloud, and there is no judgment.

⁸ My way He hedged up, and I pass not over, And on my paths darkness He placeth.

⁹ Mine honour from off me He hath stripped, And He turneth the crown from my head.

¹⁰ He breaketh me down round about, and I go, And removeth like a tree my hope.

¹¹ And He kindleth against me His anger, And reckoneth me to Him as His adversaries.

¹² Come in do His troops together, And they raise up against me their way, And encamp round about my tent.

¹³ My brethren from me He hath put far off, And mine acquaintances surely Have been estranged from me.

¹⁴ Ceased have my neighbours And my familiar friends have forgotten me,

¹⁵ Sojourners of my house and my maids, For a stranger reckon me: An alien I have been in their eyes.

¹⁶ To my servant I have called, And he doth not answer, With my mouth I make supplication to him.

¹⁷ My spirit is strange to my wife, And my favours to the sons of my [mother’s] womb.

¹⁸ Also sucklings have despised me, I rise, and they speak against me.

¹⁹ Abominate me do all the men of my counsel, And those I have loved, Have been turned against me.

²⁰ To my skin and to my flesh Cleaved hath my bone, And I deliver myself with the skin of my teeth.

²¹ Pity me, pity me, ye my friends, For the hand of God hath stricken against me.

²² Why do you pursue me as God? And with my flesh are not satisfied?

²³ Who doth grant now, That my words may be written? Who doth grant that in a book they may be graven?

²⁴ With a pen of iron and lead — For ever in a rock they may be hewn.

²⁵ That — I have known my Redeemer, The Living and the Last, For the dust he doth rise.

²⁶ And after my skin hath compassed this [body], Then from my flesh I see God:

²⁷ Whom I — I see on my side, And mine eyes have beheld, and not a stranger, Consumed have been my reins in my bosom.

²⁸ But ye say, ‘Why do we pursue after him?’ And the root of the matter hath been found in me.

²⁹ Be ye afraid because of the sword, For furious [are] the punishments of the sword, That ye may know that [there is] a judgment.