Job’s Sixth Speech: A Response to Bildad
19 Then[a] Job answered and said,
2 “How long[b] will you[c] torment me[d]
and crush me with words?
3 These ten times you[e] have disgraced me;
you[f] are not ashamed that you[g] have attacked[h] me.
4 And what is more, if I have truly erred,
my error remains with me.
5 If indeed you[i] must magnify yourselves against me,
and you[j] must let my disgrace argue against me,
6 know then that God has wronged me
and has surrounded me with his net.
7 “Look, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but[k] I am not answered;
I cry out, but[l] there is no justice.
8 He has walled up my way so that[m] I cannot pass;
and he has set darkness upon my paths.
9 He has taken my glory from me,
and he has removed the crown of[n] my head.
10 He has broken me down all around, and I am gone.
And he has uprooted my hope like a tree,
11 and he has kindled his wrath against me,
and he has counted me as one of his foes.[o]
12 His troops have come together
and have thrown up their rampart[p] against me
and have encamped around my tent.
13 “He has removed my kinsfolk from me,
and my acquaintances have only[q] turned aside from me.
14 My relatives have failed,
and my close friends have forgotten me.
15 The sojourners in[r] my house and my slave women count me as a stranger;
I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
16 I call to my servant, but[s] he does not answer;
I must personally[t] plead with him.
17 My breath is repulsive to my wife,
and I am loathsome to my own family.[u]
18 Little boys also despise me;
when I rise, then[v] they talk against me.
19 All my intimate friends[w] abhor me,
and these whom I have loved have turned against me.
20 My bones[x] cling to my skin and to my flesh,
and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21 “Pity me, pity me, you my friends,
for God’s hand has touched me.
22 Why do you[y] pursue me like God?
And are not satisfied with my flesh?
23 “O that[z] my words could be written down!
O that they could be inscribed in a scroll![aa]
24 That with a pen of iron and with lead
they might be engraved on a rock forever!
25 But[ab] I myself[ac] know that my redeemer is alive,
and at the last he will stand up upon the earth.[ad]
26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
but[ae] from[af] my flesh I will see God,
27 whom I will see for myself,[ag]
and whom my eyes will see and not a stranger.[ah]
My heart faints within me.[ai]
28 “If you[aj] say, ‘How will we persecute him?’
And ‘The root of the trouble is found’ in me,[ak]
29 be afraid for yourselves because of the sword,[al]
for wrath brings punishment by[am] the sword,
so that you may know that there is judgment.”
Footnotes
- Job 19:1 Hebrew “And”
- Job 19:2 Literally “Until when”
- Job 19:2 Plural
- Job 19:2 Hebrew “my soul,” or “my self”
- Job 19:3 Plural
- Job 19:3 Plural
- Job 19:3 Plural
- Job 19:3 Or “astonished”
- Job 19:5 Plural
- Job 19:5 Plural
- Job 19:7 Or “and”
- Job 19:7 Hebrew “and”
- Job 19:8 Hebrew “and”
- Job 19:9 Or “from”
- Job 19:11 Literally “he has counted me for him as his foes”
- Job 19:12 Or “siege works”; compare NRSV
- Job 19:13 Or “completely”
- Job 19:15 Or “of”
- Job 19:16 Hebrew “and”
- Job 19:16 Literally “with my mouth”
- Job 19:17 Literally “to the children of my womb”
- Job 19:18 Hebrew “and”
- Job 19:19 Literally “the men of the circle of my confidants”
- Job 19:20 Collective singular
- Job 19:22 Plural
- Job 19:23 Literally “Who then shall give and”
- Job 19:23 Literally “Who shall give in the scroll and they could be inscribed”
- Job 19:25 Hebrew “And”
- Job 19:25 Emphatic personal pronoun
- Job 19:25 Literally “dust”
- Job 19:26 Hebrew “and”
- Job 19:26 Or “without”
- Job 19:27 Literally “I myself will see for myself”; emphatic personal pronoun as subject to the singular verb
- Job 19:27 Or “another”
- Job 19:27 Literally “My kidneys fail in my lap”; see NRSV
- Job 19:28 Plural
- Job 19:28 Or “‘The root of the trouble is found’ in him”
- Job 19:29 Literally “from the faces of the sword”
- Job 19:29 Literally “of”