Job 19:6–29

⁶know then that God has ^yput me in the wrong

and closed his net about me.

⁷Behold, I ^zcry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;

I call for help, but there is no justice.

⁸He has ^awalled up my way, so that I cannot pass,

and he has set darkness upon my paths.

⁹He has ^bstripped from me my glory

and taken the ^ccrown from my head.

¹⁰He breaks me down on every side, and I ^dam gone,

and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.

¹¹He has kindled his wrath against me

and ^ecounts me as his adversary.

¹²His ^ftroops come on together;

they have ^gcast up their siege ramp¹ against me

and encamp around my tent.

¹³“He has put my ^hbrothers far from me,

and ⁱthose who knew me are wholly estranged from me.

¹⁴My relatives ^jhave failed me,

my close ^kfriends have forgotten me.

¹⁵The guests ^lin my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger;

I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

¹⁶I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;

I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.

¹⁷My breath is strange to my ^mwife,

and I am a stench to the children of ⁿmy own mother.

¹⁸Even young ^ochildren despise me;

when I rise they talk against me.

¹⁹All my ^pintimate friends abhor me,

and those whom I loved have turned against me.

²⁰My ^qbones stick to my skin and to my flesh,

and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

²¹Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends,

for the hand of God has ^rtouched me!

²²Why do you, like God, ^spursue me?

Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

²³“Oh that my words were written!

Oh that they were ^tinscribed in a book!

²⁴Oh that with an iron ^upen and lead

they were engraved in the rock forever!

²⁵For I ^vknow that my ^wRedeemer lives,

and at the last he will stand upon the ^xearth.²

²⁶And after my skin has been thus destroyed,

yet in³ my flesh I shall ^ysee God,

²⁷whom I shall see for myself,

and my eyes shall behold, and not ^zanother.

My heart ^afaints within me!

²⁸If you say, ‘How we will ^spursue him!’

and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him,’⁴

²⁹be afraid of the sword,

for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,

that you may know there is ^ba judgment.”