Job Talks
19 Then Job answered, 2 “How long will you make me suffer and crush me with words? 3 Ten times you have put me to shame and are not ashamed to wrong me. 4 Even if it is true that I have done wrong, it stays with me. 5 You put yourselves up high against me, and try to prove my shame to me. 6 You will know then that God has wronged me, and has set a trap around me.
7 “See, I cry, ‘Someone is hurting me!’ but I get no answer. I call for help, but no one stands for what is right and fair. 8 He has built a wall in my way so that I cannot pass. And He has put darkness on my paths. 9 He has taken my honor from me, and taken the crown from my head. 10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone. He has pulled up my hope like a tree. 11 He has made His anger burn against me, and thinks of me as one who fights against Him. 12 His armies come together and build a path against me. They camp around my tent.
13 “He has taken my brothers far away from me and my friends have all left me. 14 My brothers have left me, and my close friends have forgotten me. 15 Those who live in my house and my women servants think of me as a stranger. I am like one from another country in their eyes. 16 I call to my servant, but he does not answer. I have to beg him. 17 My breath smells bad to my wife, and I am hated by my own brothers. 18 Even young children hate me. When I get up they speak against me. 19 All my friends hate me. Those I love have turned against me. 20 I am only skin and flesh. And I have gotten away only by the skin of my teeth. 21 Have pity on me. Have pity on me, O you my friends. For the hand of God has hit me. 22 Why do you make it hard for me as God does? Have I not suffered enough to please you?
23 “If only my words were written! If only they were written down in a book! 24 If only they were cut forever into the rock with an iron cutter and lead! 25 But as for me, I know that the One Who bought me and made me free from sin lives, and that He will stand upon the earth in the end. 26 Even after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. 27 I myself will see Him. With my own eyes I will see Him and not another. My heart becomes weak within me. 28 If you say, ‘How will we make it hard for him?’ and, ‘The root of the problem is in him,’ 29 you should be afraid of the sword for yourselves. For anger is punished by the sword, that you may know there is punishment for wrong-doing.”