Job 19

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. He has plucked my hope up like a tree.

19:11 He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me amongst 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 consider me 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 I will see God in my flesh,

19:27 whom I, even I, will see on my side. My eyes will 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 judgement.”