CHAPTER 19

¹And Job spoke up and he said:

              ²  How long will you cause me grief

                     and crush me with words?

              ³Ten times now you have shamed me,

                     you do not blush to spurn me.

              ⁴And if in fact I have erred,

                     with me shall my error lodge.

              ⁵If in fact you vaunt over me

                     and reprove me with my disgrace,

              ⁶know, then, that God has undone me

                     and encircled me with His net.

              ⁷Look,   I scream “Outrage!” and I am not answered,

                     I shout and there is no justice.

              ⁸My path He blocked and I cannot pass,

                     and on my ways He set darkness.

              ⁹My glory He stripped from me,

                     and took off the crown from my head.

              ¹⁰He shattered me on all sides—I am gone.

                     He uprooted my hope like a tree.

              ¹¹His wrath flared up against me,

                     and He reckoned me one of His foes.

              ¹²Together His troops have come,

                     laid siege-works up against me

                           and encamped around my tent.

              ¹³  My brothers He distanced from me,

                     and my comrades turned strangers to me.

                           ¹⁴My dear ones withdrew, friends forgot me.

              ¹⁵Those who dwelled in my house and my slavegirls

                     reckoned me as a stranger,

                           I was an alien in their eyes.

              ¹⁶  To my servant I called and he did not answer,

                       with my mouth I pleaded to him.

              ¹⁷  My breath became strange to my wife,

                     I repelled my very own children.

              ¹⁸Even little ones despised me—

                     when I rose, they spoke against me.

              ¹⁹All my   intimates reviled me,

                     those I loved have turned against me.

              ²⁰My bones stuck to my skin and my flesh,

                     and   I escaped with the skin of my teeth.

              ²¹Mercy, have mercy on me, my companions,

                     for God’s hand has blighted me.

              ²²Why do you   hound me like God,

                     and   of my flesh you are not sated?

              ²³Would, then, that my words were written,

                     that they were inscribed in a book,

              ²⁴with   an iron pen and lead

                     to be hewn in rock forever.

              ²⁵But   I know my redeemer lives,

                     and in the end he will stand up on earth,

              ²⁶  and after they flay my skin,

                     from my flesh I shall behold God.

              ²⁷For I myself shall behold,

                     my eyes will see—no stranger’s,

                             my heart is harried within me.

              ²⁸Should you say, “How more can we hound him?

                     The root of the thing rests in him.”

              ²⁹Fear the sword,

                     for wrath is a sword-worthy crime,

                           so you may know   there is judgment.