Job 19:1–29

¹ Then Job answered: ² “How long will you torment me and crush me with your words? ³ Ten times now you have reproached me; you shamelessly mistreat me. ⁴ Even if I have truly gone astray, my error concerns me alone. ⁵ If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my disgrace against me, ⁶ then understand that it is God who has wronged me and drawn His net around me. ⁷ Though I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice. ⁸ He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; He has veiled my paths with darkness. ⁹ He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head. ¹⁰ He tears me down on every side until I am gone; He uproots my hope like a tree. ¹¹ His anger burns against me, and He counts me among His enemies. ¹² His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and encamp around my tent. ¹³ He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me. ¹⁴ My kinsmen have failed me, and my friends have forgotten me. ¹⁵ My guests and maidservants count me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight. ¹⁶ I call for my servant, but he does not answer, though I implore him with my own mouth. ¹⁷ My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family. ¹⁸ Even little boys scorn me; when I appear, they deride me. ¹⁹ All my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me. ²⁰ My skin and flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. ²¹ Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me. ²² Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh? ²³ I wish that my words were recorded and inscribed in a book, ²⁴ by an iron stylus on lead, or chiseled in stone forever. ²⁵ But I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. ²⁶ Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. ²⁷ I will see Him for myself; my eyes will behold Him, and not as a stranger. How my heart yearns within me! ²⁸ If you say, ‘Let us persecute him, since the root of the matter lies with him,’ ²⁹ then you should fear the sword yourselves, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”