Job 19

Job’s Reply to Bildad

1 Then Job answered:

2 How long will you torment me

and crush me with words?

3 You have humiliated me ten times now,

and you mistreat Q me without shame. d

4 Even if it is true that I have sinned,

my mistake concerns only R me.

5 If you really want to appear superior e to me

and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,

6 then understand that it is God who has wronged me

and caught me in his net. f

7 I cry out: “Violence! ” but get no response; g

I call for help, but there is no justice.

8 He has blocked h my way so that I cannot pass through;

he has veiled my paths with darkness. i

9 He has stripped me of my honor

and removed the crown from my head.

10 He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined. S

He uproots my hope like a tree. j

11 His anger k burns against me,

and he regards me as one of his enemies. l

12 His troops advance together;

they construct a ramp T against me

and camp m around my tent.

13 He has removed my brothers from me;

my acquaintances have abandoned me. n

14 My relatives stop coming by,

and my close friends have forgotten me.

15 My house guests U and female servants regard me as a stranger;

I am a foreigner in their sight. o

16 I call for my servant, but he does not answer,

even if I beg him with my own mouth.

17 My breath is offensive to my wife,

and my own family V finds me repulsive.

18 Even young boys scorn me.

When I stand up, they mock me. p

19 All of my best friends W despise me, q

and those I love have turned against me. r

20 My skin and my flesh cling to my bones;

I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.

21 Have mercy on me, my friends, s have mercy,

for God’s hand t has struck me. u

22 Why do you persecute me as God does?

Will you never get enough of my flesh?

23 I wish that my words were written down,

that they were recorded on a scroll

24 or were inscribed in stone forever

by an iron stylus and lead!

25 But I know that my Redeemer lives, X,v

and at the end he will stand on the dust. w

26 Even after my skin has been destroyed, Y

yet I will see God in Z my flesh. x

27 I will see him myself;

my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger. A

My heart longs B within me. y

28 If you say, “How will we pursue him,

since the root of the problem lies with him? ” C

29 then be afraid of the sword,

because wrath brings punishment by the sword, z

so that you may know there is a judgment.