Job Talks

19 Then Job answered, ² “How long will you make me suffer and crush me with words? ³ Ten times you have put me to shame and are not ashamed to wrong me. ⁴ Even if it is true that I have done wrong, it stays with me. ⁵ You put yourselves up high against me, and try to prove my shame to me. ⁶ You will know then that God has wronged me, and has set a trap around me.

⁷ “See, I cry, ‘Someone is hurting me!’ but I get no answer. I call for help, but no one stands for what is right and fair. ⁸ He has built a wall in my way so that I cannot pass. And He has put darkness on my paths. ⁹ He has taken my honor from me, and taken the crown from my head. ¹⁰ He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone. He has pulled up my hope like a tree. ¹¹ He has made His anger burn against me, and thinks of me as one who fights against Him. ¹² His armies come together and build a path against me. They camp around my tent.

¹³ “He has taken my brothers far away from me and my friends have all left me. ¹⁴ My brothers have left me, and my close friends have forgotten me. ¹⁵ Those who live in my house and my women servants think of me as a stranger. I am like one from another country in their eyes. ¹⁶ I call to my servant, but he does not answer. I have to beg him. ¹⁷ My breath smells bad to my wife, and I am hated by my own brothers. ¹⁸ Even young children hate me. When I get up they speak against me. ¹⁹ All my friends hate me. Those I love have turned against me. ²⁰ I am only skin and flesh. And I have gotten away only by the skin of my teeth. ²¹ Have pity on me. Have pity on me, O you my friends. For the hand of God has hit me. ²² Why do you make it hard for me as God does? Have I not suffered enough to please you?

²³ “If only my words were written! If only they were written down in a book! ²⁴ If only they were cut forever into the rock with an iron cutter and lead! ²⁵ But as for me, I know that the One Who bought me and made me free from sin lives, and that He will stand upon the earth in the end. ²⁶ Even after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. ²⁷ I myself will see Him. With my own eyes I will see Him and not another. My heart becomes weak within me. ²⁸ If you say, ‘How will we make it hard for him?’ and, ‘The root of the problem is in him,’ ²⁹ you should be afraid of the sword for yourselves. For anger is punished by the sword, that you may know there is punishment for wrong-doing.”