Job

Job’s Sixth Speech: A Response to Bildad

19 
Then[a] Job answered and said,
How long[b] will you[c] torment me[d]

and crush me with words?

These ten times you[e] have disgraced me;

you[f] are not ashamed that you[g] have attacked[h] me.

And what is more, if I have truly erred,

my error remains with me.

If indeed you[i] must magnify yourselves against me,

and you[j] must let my disgrace argue against me,

know then that God has wronged me

and has surrounded me with his net.

“Look, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but[k] I am not answered;

I cry out, but[l] there is no justice.

He has walled up my way so that[m] I cannot pass;

and he has set darkness upon my paths.

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

  1. Job 19:1 Hebrew “And”
  2. Job 19:2 Literally “Until when”
  3. Job 19:2 Plural
  4. Job 19:2 Hebrew “my soul,” or “my self”
  5. Job 19:3 Plural
  6. Job 19:3 Plural
  7. Job 19:3 Plural
  8. Job 19:3 Or “astonished”
  9. Job 19:5 Plural
  10. Job 19:5 Plural
  11. Job 19:7 Or “and”
  12. Job 19:7 Hebrew “and”
  13. Job 19:8 Hebrew “and”
  14. Job 19:9 Or “from”
  15. Job 19:11 Literally “he has counted me for him as his foes”
  16. Job 19:12 Or “siege works”; compare NRSV
  17. Job 19:13 Or “completely”
  18. Job 19:15 Or “of”
  19. Job 19:16 Hebrew “and”
  20. Job 19:16 Literally “with my mouth”
  21. Job 19:17 Literally “to the children of my womb”
  22. Job 19:18 Hebrew “and”
  23. Job 19:19 Literally “the men of the circle of my confidants”
  24. Job 19:20 Collective singular
  25. Job 19:22 Plural
  26. Job 19:23 Literally “Who then shall give and”
  27. Job 19:23 Literally “Who shall give in the scroll and they could be inscribed”
  28. Job 19:25 Hebrew “And”
  29. Job 19:25 Emphatic personal pronoun
  30. Job 19:25 Literally “dust”
  31. Job 19:26 Hebrew “and”
  32. Job 19:26 Or “without”
  33. Job 19:27 Literally “I myself will see for myself”; emphatic personal pronoun as subject to the singular verb
  34. Job 19:27 Or “another”
  35. Job 19:27 Literally “My kidneys fail in my lap”; see NRSV
  36. Job 19:28 Plural
  37. Job 19:28 Or “‘The root of the trouble is found’ in him”
  38. Job 19:29 Literally “from the faces of the sword”
  39. Job 19:29 Literally “of”