Job 19

Job’s Reply to Bildad

1 Then Job answered:

2 How long will you torment me

and crush me with words?

3 You have humiliated me ten times now,

and you mistreat  * 19:3 Hb obscure  me without shame.  * 19:3 Gn 31:7; Nm 14:22; Pr 25:8

4 Even if it is true that I have sinned,

my mistake concerns only  * 19:4 Lit mistake lives with  me.

5 If you really want to appear superior  * 19:5 Ps 35:26; 38:16; 55:12 to me

and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,

6 then understand that it is God who has wronged me

and caught me in his net.  * 19:6 Jb 27:2; Lm 3:5; Ezk 12:13

7 I cry out, "Violence! " but get no response;  * 19:7 Jb 30:20; Lm 3:8; Hab 1:2

I call for help, but there is no justice.

8 He has blocked  * 19:8 Jb 3:23; Lm 3:9; Hs 2:6 my way so that I cannot pass through;

he has veiled my paths with darkness.  * 19:8 Jb 29:3; 30:26; Is 59:9

9 He has stripped me of my honor

and removed the crown from my head.

10 He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined.  * 19:10 Lit gone

He uproots my hope like a tree.  * 19:10 Dt 28:63; Jb 24:20; Ps 52:5

11 His anger  * 19:11 Jb 16:9; 21:17; 40:11 burns against me,

and he regards me as one of his enemies.  * 19:11 Jb 13:24; 33:10; Lm 2:5

12 His troops advance together;

they construct a ramp  * 19:12 Lit they raise up their way against me

and camp  * 19:12 Ps 27:3; Is 29:3; Jr 50:29 around my tent.

13 He has removed my brothers from me;

my acquaintances have abandoned me.  * 19:13 Ps 31:11; 38:11; 88:8,18

14 My relatives stop coming by,

and my close friends have forgotten me.

15 My house guests  * 19:15 Or The resident aliens in my household and female servants regard me as a stranger;

I am a foreigner in their sight.  * 19:15 Gn 31:15; Ps 69:8; Mt 10:36

16 I call for my servant, but he does not answer,

even if I beg him with my own mouth.

17 My breath is offensive to my wife,

and my own family  * 19:17 Lit and the sons of my belly finds me repulsive.

18 Even young boys scorn me.

When I stand up, they mock me.  * 19:18 2Kg 2:23; Jb 29:8

19 All of my best friends  * 19:19 Lit of the men of my council despise me,  * 19:19 Jb 30:10; Ps 89:38; Am 5:10

and those I love have turned against me.  * 19:19 Ps 41:9; 55:11–12; Jn 13:18

20 My skin and my flesh cling to my bones;

I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.

21 Have mercy on me, my friends,  * 19:21 Jb 6:14; Ps 38:11; Pr 17:17 have mercy,

for God’s hand  * 19:21 Ru 1:13; Jb 12:9; Is 41:20 has struck me.  * 19:21 Jb 1:11; 2:5; 6:7

22 Why do you persecute me as God does?

Will you never get enough of my flesh?

23 I wish that my words were written down,

that they were recorded on a scroll

24 or were inscribed in stone forever

by an iron stylus and lead!

25 But I know that my Redeemer lives,  * 19:25 Or know my living Redeemer,* 19:25 Jb 16:19; Pr 23:11; Jr 50:34

and at the end he will stand on the dust.  * 19:25 Is 44:6; 48:12; Rv 1:17–18

26 Even after my skin has been destroyed,  * 19:26 Lit skin which they destroyed, or skin they destroyed in this way

yet I will see God in  * 19:26 Or apart from  my flesh.  * 19:26 Ps 17:15; Is 6:1; 1Co 13:12

27 I will see him myself;

my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger.  * 19:27 Or not a stranger

My heart longs  * 19:27 Lit My kidneys grow faint within me.  * 19:27 Ps 73:26; 84:2; 119:81

28 If you say, "How will we pursue him,

since the root of the problem lies with him? "  * 19:28 Some Hb mss, LXX, Vg; other Hb mss read me

29 then be afraid of the sword,

because wrath brings punishment by the sword,  * 19:29 Jb 15:22; Is 66:16; Ezk 32:10

so that you may know there is a judgment.