Job
19
- Then Job replied:
- "How long will you torment me and crush
me with words ?
- Ten times now you have reproached me; shamelessly
you attack me.
- If it is true that I have gone astray, my
error remains my concern alone.
- If indeed you would exalt yourselves above
me and use my humiliation against me,
- then know that God has wronged me and drawn
his net around me.
- "Though I cry, 'I've been wronged!'
I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice.
- He has blocked my way so I cannot pass;
he has shrouded my paths in darkness.
- He has stripped me of my honor and removed
the crown from my head.
- He tears me down on every side till I am
gone; he uproots my hope like a tree.
- His anger burns against me; he counts me
among his enemies.
- His troops advance in force; they build
a siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.
- "He has alienated my brothers from
me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
- My kinsmen have gone away; my friends have
forgotten me.
- My guests and my maidservants count me a
stranger; they look upon me as an alien.
- I summon my servant, but he does not answer,
though I beg him with my own mouth.
- My breath is offensive to my wife; I am
loathsome to my own brothers.
- Even the little boys scorn me; when I appear,
they ridicule me.
- All my intimate friends detest me; those
I love have turned against me.
- I am nothing but skin and bones; I have
escaped with only the skin of my teeth.
- "Have pity on me, my friends, have
pity, for the hand of God has struck me.
- Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you
never get enough of my flesh ?
- "Oh, that my words were recorded, that
they were written on a scroll,
- that they were inscribed with an iron tool
on lead, or engraved in rock forever !
- I know that my Redeemer lives, and that
in the end he will stand upon the earth.
- And after my skin has been destroyed, yet
in my flesh I will see God;
- I myself will see him with my own eyes --
I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me !
- "If you say, 'How we will hound him,
since the root of the trouble lies in him,'
- you should fear the sword yourselves; for
wrath will bring punishment by the sword, and then you will know that there
is judgment."
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