Job 19–20

Chapter 19

¹Then Job answered: ²“How long will you torment me,

and break me in pieces with words?

³These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;

are you not ashamed to wrong me?

⁴And even if it be true that I have erred,

my error remains with myself.

⁵If indeed you magnify yourselves against me,

and make my humiliation an argument against me,

⁶know then that God has put me in the wrong,

and closed his net about me.

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

I call aloud, but there is no justice.

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

and he has set darkness upon my paths.

⁹He has stripped from me my glory,

and taken the crown from my head.

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

and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.

¹¹He has kindled his wrath against me,

and counts me as his adversary.

¹²His troops come on together;

they have cast up siegeworks against me,

and encamp round about my tent.

¹³“He has put my brethren far from me,

and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

¹⁴My kinsfolk and my close friends have failed me;

¹⁵the guests in my house have forgotten me;

my maidservants count me as a stranger;

I have become an alien in their eyes.

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

I must beseech him with my mouth.

¹⁷I am repulsive to my wife,

loathsome to the sons of my own mother.

¹⁸Even young children despise me;

when I rise they talk against me.

¹⁹All my intimate friends abhor me,

and those whom I loved have turned against me.

²⁰My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh,

and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

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

for the hand of God has touched me!

²²Why do you, like God, pursue me?

Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

²³“Oh that my words were written!

Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴Oh that with an iron pen and lead

they were graven in the rock for ever!

²⁵For I know that my Redeemer lives,

and at last he will stand upon the earth;

²⁶and after my skin has been thus destroyed,

then from my flesh I shall see God,

²⁷whom I shall see on my side,

and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

My heart faints within me!

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

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

²⁹be afraid of the sword,

for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,

that you may know there is a judgment.”

Chapter 20

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:

²“Therefore my thoughts answer me,

because of my haste within me.

³I hear censure which insults me,

and out of my understanding a spirit answers me.

⁴Do you not know this from of old,

since man was placed upon earth,

⁵that the exulting of the wicked is short,

and the joy of the godless but for a moment?

⁶Though his height mount up to the heavens,

and his head reach to the clouds,

⁷he will perish for ever like his own dung;

those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’

⁸He will fly away like a dream, and not be found;

he will be chased away like a vision of the night.

⁹The eye which saw him will see him no more,

nor will his place any more behold him.

¹⁰His children will seek the favor of the poor,

and his hands will give back his wealth.

¹¹His bones are full of youthful vigor,

but it will lie down with him in the dust.

¹²“Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth,

though he hides it under his tongue,

¹³though he is loath to let it go,

and holds it in his mouth,

¹⁴yet his food is turned in his stomach;

it is the gall of asps within him.

¹⁵He swallows down riches and vomits them up again;

God casts them out of his belly.

¹⁶He will suck the poison of asps;

the tongue of a viper will kill him.

¹⁷He will not look upon the rivers,

the streams flowing with honey and curds.

¹⁸He will give back the fruit of his toil,

and will not swallow it down;

from the profit of his trading

he will get no enjoyment.

¹⁹For he has crushed and abandoned the poor,

he has seized a house which he did not build.

²⁰“Because his greed knew no rest,

he will not save anything in which he delights.

²¹There was nothing left after he had eaten;

therefore his prosperity will not endure.

²²In the fulness of his sufficiency he will be in straits;

all the force of misery will come upon him.

²³To fill his belly to the full

God will send his fierce anger into him,

and rain it upon him as his food.

²⁴He will flee from an iron weapon;

a bronze arrow will strike him through.

²⁵It is drawn forth and comes out of his body,

the glittering point comes out of his gall;

terrors come upon him.

²⁶Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures;

a fire not blown upon will devour him;

what is left in his tent will be consumed.

²⁷The heavens will reveal his iniquity,

and the earth will rise up against him.

²⁸The possessions of his house will be carried away,

dragged off in the day of God’s wrath.

²⁹This is the wicked man’s portion from God,

the heritage decreed for him by God.”