Job, 19

1. Job spoke next. He said:

1. Then Job answered:

2. How much longer are you going to torment me and crush me by your speeches?

2. "How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words?

3. You have insulted me ten times already: have you no shame at maltreating me?

3. These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?

4. Even if I had gone astray, my error would still be my own affair.

4. And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

5. But, whereas you take this superior attitude and claim that my disgrace is my own fault,

5. If indeed you magnify yourselves against me, and make my humiliation an argument against me,

6. I tell you that God has wronged me and enveloped me in his net.

6. know then that God has put me in the wrong, and closed his net about me.

7. If I protest against such violence, I am not heard, if I appeal against it, judgement is never given.

7. Behold, I cry out, `Violence!' but I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice.

8. He has built an impassable wall across my path and covered my way with darkness.

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

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

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

10. He assails me from all directions to make me vanish; he uproots my hope as he might a tree.

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

11. Inflamed with anger against me, he regards me as his foe.

11. He has kindled his wrath against me, and counts me as his adversary.

12. His troops have come in force, directing their line of advance towards me, they are now encamped round my tent.

12. His troops come on together; they have cast up siegeworks against me, and encamp round about my tent.

13. He has alienated my brothers from me, my relatives take care to avoid me,

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

14. my intimate friends have gone away and the guests in my house have forgotten me.

14. My kinsfolk and my close friends have failed me;

15. My slave-girls regard me as an intruder, a stranger as far as they are concerned.

15. the guests in my house have forgotten me; my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become an alien in their eyes.

16. My servant does not answer when I call him, I am obliged to beg favours from him!

16. I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must beseech him with my mouth.

17. My breath is unbearable to my wife, my stench to my own brothers.

17. I am repulsive to my wife, loathsome to the sons of my own mother.

18. Even the children look down on me, whenever I stand up, they start jeering at me.

18. Even young children despise me; when I rise they talk against me.

19. All my dearest friends recoil from me in horror: those I loved best have turned against me.

19. All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me.

20. My flesh is rotting under my skin, my bones are sticking out like teeth.

20. My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

21. Pity me, pity me, my friends, since I have been struck by the hand of God.

21. Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!

22. Must you persecute me just as God does, and give my body no peace?

22. Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

23. Will no one let my words be recorded, inscribed on some monument

23. "Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

24. with iron chisel and engraving tool, cut into the rock for ever?

24. Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever!

25. I know that I have a living Defender and that he will rise up last, on the dust of the earth.

25. For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth;

26. After my awakening, he will set me close to him, and from my flesh I shall look on God.

26. and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God,

27. He whom I shall see will take my part: my eyes will be gazing on no stranger. My heart sinks within me.

27. whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

28. When you say, 'How can we confound him? What pretext can we discover against him?'

28. If you say, `How we will pursue him!' and, `The root of the matter is found in him';

29. You yourselves had best beware the sword, since the wrath bursts into flame at wicked deeds and then you will learn that there is indeed a judgement!

29. be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment."