Job 19:1-29
19 And Job proceeded to answer and say:
2 “How long will YOU men keep irritating my soul+And keep crushing me with words?+
3 These ten times YOU proceeded to rebuke me;YOU are not ashamed [that] YOU deal so hard with me.+
4 And, granted that I have made a mistake,+It is with me that my mistake will lodge.*
5 If for a fact against me YOU men do put on great airs,+And YOU show my reproach to be proper against me,+
6 KNOW, then, that God* himself has misled me,And his hunting net he has closed in upon me.+
7 Look! I keep crying out, ‘Violence!’ but I get no answer;+I keep crying for help, but there is no justice.+
8 My very path he has blocked with a stone wall,+ and I cannot pass over;And upon my roadways he puts darkness itself.+
9 My own glory he has stripped from me,+And he takes away the crown of my head.
10 He pulls me down on all sides, and I go away;And he pulls my hope out just like a tree.
11 His anger also grows hot against me,+And he keeps reckoning me as an adversary of his.
12 Unitedly his troops come and cast up their way against me,+And they camp round about my tent.
13 My own brothers he has put far away from me,+And the very ones knowing me have even turned aside from me.
14 My intimate acquaintances* have ceased to be,+And those known by me have themselves forgotten me,
15 Those residing as aliens in my house;+ and my slave girls themselves reckon me as a stranger;A real foreigner I have become in their eyes.
16 To my servant I have called, but he does not answer.With my own mouth I keep imploring him for compassion.
17 My breath* itself has become loathsome to my wife,+And I have become foul-smelling to the sons of my [mother’s] belly.
18 Also young boys themselves have rejected me;+Let me but rise up, and they begin to speak against me.
19 All the men of my intimate group detest me,+And those whom I loved have turned against me.+
20 To my skin and to my flesh my bones actually cleave,+And I escape with the skin of my teeth.*
21 Show me some favor, show me some favor, O YOU my companions,+For God’s* own hand has touched me.+
22 Why do YOU men keep persecuting me as God* does,+And not become satisfied with my very flesh?
23 O that now my words were written down!O that in a book they were even inscribed!
24 With an iron stylus+ and [with] lead,Forever in the rock O that they were hewn!
25 And I myself well know that my redeemer*+ is alive,And that, coming after [me], he will rise up+ over [the] dust.
26 And after my skin, [which] they have skinned off,—this!Yet reduced in my flesh* I shall behold God,*
27 Whom even I shall behold for myself,+And [whom] my very eyes will certainly see, but not some stranger.My kidneys have failed deep within me.
28 For YOU men say, ‘Why do we keep persecuting+ him?’When the very root of [the] matter is found in me.*
29 Be frightened for yourselves because of a sword,+For the sword means a raging against errors,In order that YOU men may know there is a judge.”*+
Footnotes
^ LXX adds: “by saying a thing that was not necessary, and my sayings (utterances) are mistaken (err) and not seasonable (timely).”
^ “God.” Heb., ʼElohʹah, sing. of ʼElo·himʹ.
^ Or, “My relations.”
^ “My breath (spirit).” Heb., ru·chiʹ; Lat., haʹli·tum.
^ “And my flesh becomes hairless in my teeth,” by another derivation of the verb and some corrections of M. Compare 13:14.
^ “God’s.” Heb., ʼElohʹah.
^ “God.” Heb., ʼEl.
^ “My redeemer (repurchaser).” By extension of thought, “my avenger (vindicator).” Heb., goʹʼali; Lat., re·demʹptor. See Nu 35:21; Ps 19:14; Pr 23:11; Isa 63:16; Jer 50:34.
^ Lit., “Yet out of my flesh,” or, “Yet apart from my flesh.”
^ “God.” Heb., ʼElohʹah.
^ According to M; LXX, “we shall find in him.”
