Job 19

Job: Eloah has bent me out of true

1Then Job answered: 2How long will you torment me and crush me with words? 3Ten times now you have humiliated me; you feel no shame in wronging me. 4And if I really have strayed, my straying lodges with me. 5If you truly mean to lord it over me and use my disgrace as proof against me, 6then know this: Eloah has bent me out of true, and it is his net that has closed around me. 7Look, I cry out, “Violence!” and get no answer; I call for help, and there is no justice. 8He has walled up my road so I cannot pass; he has laid darkness across my paths. 9He has stripped my honor off me and taken the crown from my head. 10He tears me down on every side, and I am gone; he has pulled up my hope like a tree. 11His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies. 12His troops come on together. They build their siege road against me and camp around my tent.

Everyone I loved has turned away

13He has driven my brothers far from me; those who knew me are strangers now. 14My kinsmen have failed me, and my close friends have forgotten me. 15The guests of my house and my maidservants count me a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes. 16I call my servant and he does not answer; I have to beg him with my own mouth. 17My breath is strange to my wife, and I must plead with the sons of my own body. 18Even the young boys despise me; when I stand up, they talk against me. 19All the men of my circle loathe me, and those I loved have turned against me. 20My bones cling to my skin and my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. 21Pity me, pity me, you who are my friends, for the hand of Eloah has struck me. 22Why do you hunt me down as God does, and never get your fill of my flesh?

I know: my redeemer lives

23If only my words were written down! If only they were set in a record! 24cut with an iron stylus and lead, carved into rock forever! 25But I know: my redeemer lives, and at the last he will rise over the dust. 26And after my skin has been struck from me, from my flesh I will see Eloah,* 27whom I will see for myself, whom my own eyes will see, and no stranger’s. My inmost self is consumed within me. 28When you say, “How we will hound him!” and, “The root of the matter is found in me” — 29then be afraid of the sword yourselves, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, so you will know there is a judgment.