Job 19

_1-2Why do you keep tormenting me with words?

₃Time after time you insult me

and show no shame for the way you abuse me.

₄Even if I have done wrong,

how does that hurt you?

₅You think you are better than I am,

and regard my troubles as proof of my guilt.

₆Can't you see it is God who has done this?

He has set a trap to catch me.

₇I protest against his violence,

but no one is listening;

no one hears my cry for justice.

₈God has blocked the way, and I can't get through;

he has hidden my path in darkness.

₉He has taken away all my wealth

and destroyed my reputation.

₁₀He batters me from every side.

He uproots my hope

and leaves me to wither and die.

₁₁God is angry and rages against me;

he treats me like his worst enemy.

₁₂He sends his army to attack me;

they dig trenches and lay siege to my tent.

₁₃God has made my own family forsake me;

I am a stranger to those who knew me;

₁₄my relatives and friends are gone.

₁₅Those who were guests in my house have forgotten me;

my servant women treat me like a stranger and a foreigner.

₁₆When I call a servant, he doesn't answer —

even when I beg him to help me.

₁₇My wife can't stand the smell of my breath,

and my own brothers won't come near me.

₁₈Children despise me and laugh when they see me.

₁₉My closest friends look at me with disgust;

those I loved most have turned against me.

₂₀My skin hangs loose on my bones;

I have barely escaped with my life.

₂₁You are my friends! Take pity on me!

The hand of God has struck me down.

₂₂Why must you persecute me as God does?

Haven't you tormented me enough?

₂₃How I wish that someone would remember my words

and record them in a book!

₂₄Or with a chisel carve my words in stone

and write them so that they would last for ever.

₂₅But I know there is someone in heaven

who will come at last to my defence.

₂₆Even after my skin is eaten by disease,

while still in this body I will see God.

₂₇I will see him with my own eyes,

and he will not be a stranger.

My courage failed because you said,

₂₈“How can we torment him?”

You looked for some excuse to attack me.

₂₉But now, be afraid of the sword —

the sword that brings God's wrath on sin,

so that you will know there is one who judges.