JOB 19 [†]Then Job answered and said:

2[†] “How long will you torment me

and break me in pieces with words?

3[†] These  w ten times you have cast reproach upon me;

are you not ashamed to wrong me?

4 And even if it be true that I have erred,

my error remains with myself.

5 If indeed you  x magnify yourselves against me

and make my disgrace an argument against me,

6[†] know then that God has  y put me in the wrong

and closed his net about me.

7[^][†] Behold, I  z cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;

I call for help, but there is no justice.

8[†] He has  a walled up my way, so that I cannot pass,

and he has set darkness upon my paths.

9 He has  b stripped from me my glory

and taken the  c crown from my head.

10 He breaks me down on every side, and I  d am gone,

and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.

11 He has kindled his wrath against me

and  e counts me as his adversary.

12 His  f troops come on together;

they have  g cast up their siege ramp [1] against me

and encamp around my tent.

13[†] “He has put my  h brothers far from me,

and  i those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.

14 My relatives  j have failed me,

my close  k friends have forgotten me.

15 The guests  l in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger;

I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;

I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.

17 My breath is strange to my  m wife,

and I am a stench to the children of  n my own mother.

18 Even young  o children despise me;

when I rise they talk against me.

19[^] All my  p intimate friends abhor me,

and those whom I loved have turned against me.

20[†] My  q bones stick to my skin and to my flesh,

and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

21 Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends,

for the hand of God has  r touched me!

22[†] Why do you, like God,  s pursue me?

Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

23[†] “Oh that my words were written!

Oh that they were  t inscribed in a book!

24 Oh that with an iron  u pen and lead

they were engraved in the rock forever!

25[^][†] For I  v know that my  w Redeemer lives,

and at the last he will stand upon the  x earth. [2]

26[^] And after my skin has been thus destroyed,

yet in [3] my flesh I shall  y see God,

27 whom I shall see for myself,

and my eyes shall behold, and not  z another.

My heart  a faints within me!

28[†] If you say, ‘How we will  s pursue him!’

and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him,’

29[†] be afraid of the sword,

for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,

that you may know there is  b a judgment.”