Job Chapter 19 Back Next{19:1} Then
Job answered,
{19:2} "How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?
{19:3} You have reproached me ten times. You aren't ashamed that you attack me.
{19:4} If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.
{19:5} If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach;
{19:6} know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.
{19:7} "Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice.
{19:8} He has walled up my way so that I can't pass, and has set
darkness in my paths.
{19:9} He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the
crown from my head.
{19:10} He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My
hope he has plucked up like a tree.
{19:11} He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.
{19:12} His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and
encamp around my tent.
{19:13} "He has put my
brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
{19:14} My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.
{19:15} Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.
{19:16} I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.
{19:17} My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
{19:18} Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.
{19:19} All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.
{19:20} My bones stick to my skin and to my
flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
{19:21} "Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me.
{19:22} Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
{19:23} "Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
{19:24} That with an
iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
{19:25} But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the
earth.
{19:26} After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God,
{19:27} Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger. "My
heart is consumed within me.
{19:28} If you say, 'How we will persecute him!' because the root of the matter is found in me,
{19:29} be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment."
Job Chapter 19 Back Next