Job 19–20

JOB’S REPLY TO BILDAD

19Then Job answered:

²How long will you torment me and crush me with words?

³You have humiliated me ten times now,

and you mistreat^A me without shame.^l

⁴Even if it is true that I have sinned,

my mistake concerns only^B me.

⁵If you really want to appear superior^m to me

and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,

⁶then understand that it is God who has wronged me

and caught me in his net.ⁿ

⁷I cry out, “Violence!” but get no response;^o

I call for help, but there is no justice.

⁸He has blocked^p my way so that I cannot pass through;

he has veiled my paths with darkness.^q

⁹He has stripped me of my honor

and removed the crown from my head.

¹⁰He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined.^C

He uproots my hope like a tree.^r

¹¹His anger^s burns against me,

and he regards me as one of his enemies.^t

¹²His troops advance together;

they construct a ramp^D against me

and camp^u around my tent.

¹³He has removed my brothers from me;

my acquaintances have abandoned me.^v

¹⁴My relatives stop coming by,

and my close friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵My house guests^E and female servants regard me as a stranger;

I am a foreigner in their sight.^w

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

even if I beg him with my own mouth.

¹⁷My breath is offensive to my wife,

and my own family^F finds me repulsive.

¹⁸Even young boys scorn me.

When I stand up, they mock me.^x

¹⁹All of my best friends^G despise me,^y

and those I love have turned against me.^z

²⁰My skin and my flesh cling to my bones;

I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.

²¹Have mercy on me, my friends,^a have mercy,

for God’s hand^b has struck me.^c

²²Why do you persecute me as God does?

Will you never get enough of my flesh?

²³I wish that my words were written down,

that they were recorded on a scroll

²⁴or were inscribed in stone forever

by an iron stylus and lead!

²⁵But I know that my Redeemer lives,^Ad

and at the end he will stand on the dust.^e

²⁶Even after my skin has been destroyed,^B

yet I will see God in^C my flesh.^f

²⁷I will see him myself;

my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger.^D

My heart longs^E within me.^g

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

since the root of the problem lies with him?”^F

²⁹then be afraid of the sword,

because wrath brings punishment by the sword,^h

so that you may know there is a judgment.

ZOPHAR SPEAKS

20Then Zophar the Naamathiteⁱ replied:

²This is why my unsettling thoughts compel me to answer,

because I am upset!^G

³I have heard a rebuke that insults me,

and my understanding^H makes me reply.^j

⁴Don’t you know that ever since antiquity,

from the time a human was placed on earth,

⁵the joy of the wicked has been brief

and the happiness of the godless has lasted only a moment?^k

⁶Though his arrogance reaches heaven,

and his head touches the clouds,^l

⁷he will vanish forever like his own dung.

Those who know^I him will ask, “Where is he?”^m

⁸He will fly away like a dream and never be found;

he will be chased away like a vision in the night.ⁿ

⁹The eye that saw him will see him no more,^o

and his household will no longer see him.^p

¹⁰His children will beg from^J the poor,

for his own hands must give back his wealth.

¹¹His frame may be full of youthful vigor,

but it will lie down with him in dust.^q

¹²Though evil tastes sweet in his mouth

and he conceals it under his tongue,

¹³though he cherishes it and will not let it go

but keeps it in his mouth,^r

¹⁴yet the food in his stomach turns

into cobras’ venom inside him.

¹⁵He swallows wealth but must vomit it up;

God will force it from his stomach.

¹⁶He will suck the poison of cobras;

a viper’s fangs^A will kill him.^s

¹⁷He will not enjoy the streams,

the rivers flowing with honey and curds.^t

¹⁸He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it;

he doesn’t enjoy the profits from his trading.

¹⁹For he oppressed and abandoned the poor;

he seized a house he did not build.^u

²⁰Because his appetite is never satisfied,^B

he does not let anything he desires escape.

²¹Nothing is left for him to consume;^v

therefore, his prosperity will not last.

²²At the height of his success^C distress will come to him;^a

the full weight of misery^D will crush him.

²³When he fills his stomach,

God will send his burning anger against him,

raining^b it down on him while he is eating.^E

²⁴If he flees from an iron weapon,

an arrow from a bronze bow will pierce him.

²⁵He pulls it out of his back,

the flashing tip out of his liver.^F

Terrors come over him.^c

²⁶Total darkness is reserved for his treasures.

A fire unfanned by human hands will consume^d him;

it will feed on what is left in his tent.

²⁷The heavens will expose his iniquity,^e

and the earth will rise up against him.^f

²⁸The possessions in his house will be removed,

flowing away on the day of God’s anger.

²⁹This is the wicked person’s lot^g from God,

the inheritance God ordained for him.