Job 19

Job Feels Insulted

1Then Job answered and said,

2“How long will you torment and exasperate me And crush me with words?

3These ten times you have insulted me; You are not ashamed to wrong me [and harden your hearts against me].

4And if it were true that I have erred, My error would remain with me [and I would be conscious of it].

5If indeed you [braggarts] vaunt and magnify yourselves over me And prove my disgrace (humiliation) to me,

Everything Is Against Him

6Know then that God has wronged me and overthrown me And has closed His net around me.

7“Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not heard; I shout for help, but there is no justice.

8He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, And He has set darkness upon my paths.

9He has stripped me of my honor And removed the crown from my head.

10He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; He has uprooted my hope like a tree.

11He has also kindled His wrath [like a fire] against me And He considers and counts me as one of His adversaries.

12His troops come together And build up their way and siege works against me And camp around my tent.

13“He has put my brothers far from me, And my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.

14My relatives have failed [me], And my intimate friends have forgotten me.

15Those who live [temporarily] in my house and my maids consider me a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight.

16I call to my servant, but he does not answer; I have to implore him with words.

17My breath is repulsive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers.

18Even young children despise me; When I get up, they speak against me.

19All the men of my council hate me; Those I love have turned against me.

20My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, And I have escaped [death] by the skin of my teeth.

21Have pity on me! Have pity on me, O you my friends, For the hand of God has touched me.

Job Says, “My Redeemer Lives”

22Why do you persecute me as God does? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh (anguish)?

23“Oh, that the words I now speak were written! Oh, that they were recorded in a scroll!

24That with an iron stylus and [molten] lead They were engraved in the rock forever!

25For I know that my Redeemer and Vindicator lives, And at the last He will take His stand upon the earth.

26Even after my [mortal] skin is destroyed [by death], Yet from my [immortal] flesh I will see God,

27Whom I, even I, will see for myself, And my eyes will see Him and not another! My heart faints within me.

28If you say, ‘How shall we [continue to] persecute him?’ And ‘What pretext for a case against him can we find [since we claim the root of these afflictions is found in him]?’

29Then beware and be afraid of the sword [of divine vengeance] for yourselves, For wrathful are the punishments of that sword, So that you may know there is judgment.”