NETtext - Job - 19

19:1  Then Job answered:

19:2  "How long will you torment me and crush me with your words?

19:3  These ten times you have been reproaching me; you are not ashamed to attack me!

19:4  But even if it were true that I have erred, my error remains solely my concern!

19:5  If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and plead my disgrace against me,

19:6  know then that God has wronged me and encircled me with his net.

19:7  "If I cry out, 'Violence!' I receive no answer; I cry for help, but there is no justice.

19:8  He has blocked my way so I cannot pass, and has set darkness over my paths.

19:9  He has stripped me of my honor and has taken the crown off my head.

19:10  He tears me down on every side until I perish; he uproots my hope like one uproots a tree.

19:11  Thus his anger burns against me, and he considers me among his enemies.

19:12  His troops advance together; they throw up a siege ramp against me, and they camp around my tent.

19:13  "He has put my relatives far from me; my acquaintances only turn away from me.

19:14  My kinsmen have failed me; my friends have forgotten me.

19:15  My guests and my servant girls consider me a stranger; I am a foreigner in their eyes.

19:16  I summon my servant, but he does not respond, even though I implore him with my own mouth.

19:17  My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my brothers.

19:18  Even youngsters have scorned me; when I get up, they scoff at me.

19:19  All my closest friends detest me; and those whom I love have turned against me.

19:20  My bones stick to my skin and my flesh; I have escaped alive with only the skin of my teeth.

19:21  Have pity on me, my friends, have pity on me, for the hand of God has struck me.

19:22  Why do you pursue me like God does? Will you never be satiated with my flesh?

19:23  "O that my words were written down, O that they were written on a scroll,

19:24  that with an iron chisel and with lead they were engraved in a rock forever!

19:25  As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that as the last he will stand upon the earth.

19:26  And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God,

19:27  whom I will see for myself, and whom my own eyes will behold, and not another. My heart grows faint within me.

19:28  If you say, 'How we will pursue him, since the root of the trouble is found in him!'

19:29  Fear the sword yourselves, for wrath brings the punishment by the sword, so that you may know that there is judgment."