Job 19
Job’s Reply to Bildad
1Then Job answered:23How long will you torment me and crush me with words?4
5You have humiliated me ten times now, and you mistreat me without shame.6
7Even if it is true that I have sinned, my mistake concerns only me.8
9If you really want to appear superior to me and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,10
11then understand that it is God who has wronged me and caught me in his net.12
13I cry out, “Violence!” but get no response; I call for help, but there is no justice.14
15He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass through; he has veiled my paths with darkness.16
17He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.18
19He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined. He uproots my hope like a tree.20
21His anger burns against me, and he regards me as one of his enemies.22
23His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and camp around my tent.24
25He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.26
27My relatives stop coming by, and my close friends have forgotten me.28
29My house guests and female servants regard me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight.30
31I call for my servant, but he does not answer, even if I beg him with my own mouth.32
33My breath is offensive to my wife, and my own family finds me repulsive.34
35Even young boys scorn me. When I stand up, they mock me.36
37All of my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.38
39My skin and my flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.40
41Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for God’s hand has struck me.42
43Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?44
45I wish that my words were written down, that they were recorded on a scroll46
47or were inscribed in stone forever by an iron stylus and lead!48
49But I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the dust.50
51Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh.52
53I will see him myself; my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me.54
55If you say, “How will we pursue him, since the root of the problem lies with him?”56
57then be afraid of the sword, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.58