Job 19:1-29
19 But Job answered
2 “How long will you make my soul miserableand beat me down with phrases?
3 This is ten times you have been humiliating me,you are not embarrassed to keep saying spiteful things about me.
4 But even take it that I really have made a misstep:it is with me my misstep is lodged.
5 If you are really taking high ground with meand proving my ignominy against me,
6 Know that it is God has done the unfair thing by meand set his toils round me.
7 Suppose I cry murder, I am not answered;I shout an appeal and there is no administration of justice.
8 He has walled off my road and I cannot pass;he has spread darkness over my paths.
9 He has stripped my honor off meand taken away the crown from my head.
10 He tears down every side of me, and I am gone,and he has cleared away my hope like a piece of timber.
11 He is angry with meand thinks of me as he does of his foes.
12 His raiders come on unitedlyand have built their road against meand are camped round my tent.
13 * He has set my brothers to standing aloof from me,and my acquaintances are altogether estranged from me.
14 * My nearest and dearest have quit,my housemates have forgotten me,
15 And my serving-maids think me a stranger,I seem to them a foreigner.
16 I have called my slave and he does not answer—I beg him for favors with my own mouth.
17 My breath is hateful to my wifeand I smell foul to the sons of my body.
18 Even children think nothing of me;let me stand up, they talk at me.
19 All my bosom friends abhor me,and whom I loved have turned on me.
20 ** My bones stick to my skin,and I come off with my flesh in my teeth.
21 Be kind to me, be kind to me, you friends of mine,because God’s hand has touched me.
22 Why is it you chase me down as Deity doesand can never get enough of my flesh?
23 O that what I have to say were written down,were registered in a document,
24 With iron pen and lead,carved in rock forevermore!
25 * But as for me, I know my vindicator is alive,and one in future will stand up above ground,
26 And behind my skin, which has borne this,out of my flesh I shall behold God,
27 Whom I shall behold for myself;it will be my eyes that saw, and not a stranger—my heart is spent in my bosom!
28 When you think ‘What of his shall we chase downand find ground for a case in him?’
29 ** Quail on your own account for fear of a sword,because those are offenses to bring down the sword,so that you may know there is an arbiter.”
Footnotes
^ 19:13 Var.* My brothers stand aloof from me
^ 19:14-15 Or My nearest have quit and my intimates have forgotten me, my housemates and my serving-maids think me a stranger
^ 19:20 Codd. to my skin and flesh
^ 19:20 Codd. I come off with (or by) the skin of my teeth or the hair has come out from the skin of my teeth
^ 19:25-26 Unc.; susp.
^ 19:29 Codd. ire is offenses
^ 19:29 (there is an arbiter) Unc.
