Job 19

1 Then Job answered, and said,

2 How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?

3 These ten times ye have reproached me. Ye are not ashamed that ye deal hardly with me.

4 And be it indeed that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

5 If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach,

6 know now that God has subverted me, and has encompassed me with his net.

7 Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice.

8 He has walled up my way that I cannot pass, and has set darkness in my paths.

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

10 He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. And he has plucked up my hope like a tree.

11 He has also kindled his wrath against me. And he considers me to him as his adversaries.

12 His troops come on together, and cast up their way against me, and encamp round about my tent.

13 He has put my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

14 My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me.

15 Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, reckon me for a stranger; I am an alien in their sight.

16 I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I entreat him with my mouth.

17 My breath is strange to my wife, and my supplication to the sons of my own mother.

18 Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.

19 All my familiar friends abhor me, and those whom I loved are turned against me.

20 My bone cleaves to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped with the skin of my teeth.

21 Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God has touched me.

22 Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

23 O that my words were now written! O that they were inscribed in a book,

24 that they were engraved in the rock forever with an iron pen and lead!

25 But as for me I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand up upon the earth.

26 And after my skin, this body, is destroyed, then outside my flesh I shall see God,

27 whom I, even I, shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger. My heart is consumed within me.

28 If ye say, How we will persecute him! And that the root of the matter is found in me,

29 be ye afraid of the sword. For wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.