Job 19–20

Chapter 19

Then Job answered, and said:

²How long do you afflict my soul, and break me in pieces with words?

³Behold, these ten times you confound me, and are not ashamed to oppress me.

⁴For if I have been ignorant, my ignorance shall be with me.

⁵But you set yourselves up against me, and reprove me with my reproaches.

⁶At least now understand, that God hath not afflicted me with an equal judgment, and compassed me with his scourges.

⁷Behold I shall cry suffering violence, and no one will hear: I shall cry aloud, and there is none to judge.

⁸He hath hedged in my path round about, and I cannot pass, and in my way he hath set darkness.

⁹He hath stripped me of my glory, and hath taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am lost, and he hath taken away my hope, as from a tree that is plucked up.

¹¹His wrath is kindled against me, and he hath counted me as his enemy.

¹²His troops have come together, and have made themselves a way by me, and have besieged my tabernacle round about.

¹³He hath put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintance like strangers have departed from me.

¹⁴My kinsmen have forsaken me, and they that knew me, have forgotten me.

¹⁵They that dwell in my house, and my maidservants have counted me as a stranger, and I have been like an alien in their eyes.

¹⁶I called my servant, and he gave me no answer, I entreated him with my own mouth.

¹⁷My wife hath abhorred my breath, and I entreated the children of my womb.

¹⁸Even fools despised me, and when I was gone from them, they spoke against me.

¹⁹They that were sometime my counsellors, have abhorred me: and he whom I loved most is turned against me.

²⁰The flesh being consumed, my bone hath cleaved to my skin, and nothing but lips are left about my teeth.

²¹Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me.

²²Why do you persecute me as God, and glut yourselves with my flesh?

²³Who will grant me that my words may be written? who will grant me that they may be marked down in a book?

²⁴With an iron pen and in a plate of lead, or else be graven with an instrument in flint stone?

²⁵For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth.

²⁶And I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God.

²⁷Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another: this my hope is laid up in my bosom.

²⁸Why then do you say now: Let us persecute him, and let us find occasion of word against him?

²⁹Flee then from the face of the sword, for the sword is the revenger of iniquities: and know ye that there is a judgment.

Chapter 20

Then Sophar the Naamathite answered, and said:

²Therefore various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind is hurried away to different things.

³The doctrine with which thou reprovest me, I will hear, and the spirit of my understanding shall answer for me.

⁴This I know from the beginning, since man was placed upon the earth,

⁵That the praise of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment.

⁶If his pride mount up even to heaven, and his head touch the clouds:

⁷In the end he shall be destroyed like a dunghill, and they that had seen him, shall say: Where is he?

⁸As a dream that fleeth away he shall not be found, he shall pass as a vision of the night:

⁹The eyes that had seen him, shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more behold him.

¹⁰His children shall be oppressed with want, and his hands shall render to him his sorrow.

¹¹His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust.

¹²For when evil shall be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under his tongue.

¹³He will spare it, and not leave it, and will hide it in his throat.

¹⁴His bread in his belly shall be turned into the gall of asps within him,

¹⁵The riches which he hath swallowed, he shall vomit up, and God shall draw them out of his belly.

¹⁶He shall suck the head of asps, and the viper’s tongue shall kill him.

¹⁷Let him not see the streams of the river, the brooks of honey and of butter.

¹⁸He shall be punished for all that he did, and yet shall not be consumed: according to the multitude of his devices so also shall he suffer.

¹⁹Because he broke in and stripped the poor: he hath violently taken away a house which he did not build.

²⁰And yet his belly was not filled: and when he hath the things he coveted, he shall not be able to possess them.

²¹There was nothing left of his meat, and therefore nothing shall continue of his goods:

²²When he shall be filled, he shall be straitened, he shall burn, and every sorrow shall fall upon him.

²³May his belly be filled, that God may send forth the wrath of his indignation upon him, and rain down his war upon him.

²⁴He shall flee from weapons of iron, and shall fall upon a bow of brass.

²⁵The sword is drawn out, and cometh forth from its scabbard, and glittereth in his bitterness: the terrible ones shall go and come upon him.

²⁶All darkness is hid in his secret places: a fire that is not kindled shall devour him, he shall be afflicted when left in his tabernacle.

²⁷The heavens shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth shall rise up against him.

²⁸The offspring of his house shall be exposed, he shall be pulled down in the day of God’s wrath.

²⁹This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the inheritance of his doings from the Lord.