Job 19

19Then Job answered and said,

²How long will ye vex my soul,

And break me in pieces with words?

³These ten times have ye reproached me:

Ye are not ashamed that ye deal hardly with me.

⁴And be it indeed that I have erred,

Mine error remaineth with myself.

⁵If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me,

And plead against me my reproach;

⁶Know now that God hath subverted me in my cause,

And hath compassed me with his net.

⁷Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard:

I cry for help, but there is no justice.

⁸He hath walled up my way that I cannot pass,

And hath set darkness in my paths.

⁹He hath stripped me of my glory,

And taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰He hath broken me down on every side, and I am gone;

And my hope hath he plucked up like a tree.

¹¹He hath also kindled his wrath against me,

And he counteth me unto him as one of his adversaries.

¹²His troops come on together,

And cast up their way against me,

And encamp round about my tent.

¹³He hath put my brethren far from me,

And mine acquaintance are wholly estranged from me.

¹⁴My kinsfolk have failed,

And my familiar friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵They that dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger;

I am an alien in their sight.

¹⁶I call unto my servant, and he giveth me no answer,

Though I entreat him with my mouth.

¹⁷My breath is strange to my wife,

And my supplication to the children of mine own mother.

¹⁸Even young children despise me;

If I arise, they speak against me.

¹⁹All my familiar friends abhor me,

And they whom I loved are turned against me.

²⁰My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh,

And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.

²¹Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends;

For the hand of God hath touched me.

²²Why do ye persecute me as God,

And are not satisfied with my flesh?

²³Oh that my words were now written!

Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴That with an iron pen and lead

They were graven in the rock for ever!

²⁵But as for me I know that my Redeemer liveth,

And at last he will stand up upon the earth:

²⁶And after my skin, even this body, is destroyed,

Then without my flesh shall I see God;

²⁷Whom I, even I, shall see, on my side,

And mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.

My heart is consumed within me.

²⁸If ye say, How we will persecute him!

And that the root of the matter is found in me;

²⁹Be ye afraid of the sword:

For wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword,

That ye may know there is a judgment.