Failed friendship
19 Then Job responded:
2 How long will you harass me
and crush me with words?
3 These ten times you’ve humiliated me;
shamelessly you insult me.
4 Have I really gone astray?
If so, my error remains hidden inside me.
5 If you look down on me
and use my disgrace to criticize me,
6 know then that God has wronged me
and enclosed his net over me.
God’s treatment of Job
7 If I cry “Violence!” I’m not answered;
I shout—but there is no justice.
8 He walled up my path so I can’t pass
and put darkness on my trail,
9 stripped my honor from me,
removed the crown from my head,
10 tore me down completely so that I’ll die, and uprooted my hope like a tree.
11 His anger burns against me;
he considers me his enemy.
12 His troops come as one
and construct their siege ramp[a] against me;
they camp around my tent.
Social ostracism
13 He has distanced my family from me;
my acquaintances are also alienated from me.
14 My visitors have ceased;
those who know me have forgotten me.
15 My guests and female servants think me a stranger;
I’m a foreigner in their sight.
16 I call my servant, and he doesn’t answer;
I myself must beg him.
17 My breath stinks to my wife;
I am odious to my children.
18 Even the young despise me;
I get up, and they rail against me.
19 All my closest friends despise me;
the ones I have loved turn against me.
Misery
20 My bones cling to my skin and flesh;
I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21 Pity me. Pity me. You’re my friends.
God’s hand has truly struck me.
22 Why do you pursue me like God does,
always hungry for my flesh?
Brief hope
23 Oh, that my words were written down,
inscribed on a scroll
24 with an iron instrument and lead,
forever engraved on stone.
25 But I know that my redeemer[b] is alive
and afterward he’ll rise upon the dust.
26 After my skin has been torn apart this way—
then from my flesh[c] I’ll see God,
27 whom I’ll see myself—
my eyes see,[d] and not a stranger’s.
I am utterly dejected.
Warning
28 You say, “How will we pursue him
so that the root of the matter can be found in him?”[e]
29 You ought to fear the sword yourselves,
for wrath brings punishment by the sword.
You should know that there is judgment.