Job 19 — NETB

19Verse 1Then Job answered:^{Verse 2}“How long will you torment me
and crush me with your words?
^{Verse 3}These ten times you have been reproaching me;
you are not ashamed to attack me!
^{Verse 4}But even if it were true that I have erred,
my error remains solely my concern!
^{Verse 5}If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me
and plead my disgrace against me,
^{Verse 6}know then that God has wronged me
and encircled me with his net.

Job’s Abandonment and Affliction

^{Verse 7}“If I cry out, ‘Violence!’
I receive no answer;
I cry for help,
but there is no justice.
^{Verse 8}He has blocked my way so I cannot pass,
and has set darkness over my paths.
^{Verse 9}He has stripped me of my honor
and has taken the crown off my head.
^{Verse 10}He tears me down on every side until I perish;
he uproots my hope like one uproots a tree.
^{Verse 11}Thus his anger burns against me,
and he considers me among his enemies.
^{Verse 12}His troops advance together;
they throw up a siege ramp against me,
and they camp around my tent.

Job’s Forsaken State

^{Verse 13}“He has put my relatives far from me;
my acquaintances only turn away from me.
^{Verse 14}My kinsmen have failed me;
my friends have forgotten me.
^{Verse 15}My guests and my servant girls
consider me a stranger;
I am a foreigner in their eyes.
^{Verse 16}I summon my servant, but he does not respond,
even though I implore him with my own mouth.
^{Verse 17}My breath is repulsive to my wife;
I am loathsome to my brothers.
^{Verse 18}Even youngsters have scorned me;
when I get up, they scoff at me.
^{Verse 19}All my closest friends detest me;
and those whom I love have turned against me.
^{Verse 20}My bones stick to my skin and my flesh;
I have escaped alive with only the skin of my teeth.
^{Verse 21}Have pity on me, my friends, have pity on me,
for the hand of God has struck me.
^{Verse 22}Why do you pursue me like God does?
Will you never be satiated with my flesh?

Job’s Assurance of Vindication

^{Verse 23}“O that my words were written down,
O that they were written on a scroll,
^{Verse 24}that with an iron chisel and with lead
they were engraved in a rock forever!
^{Verse 25}As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that as the last
he will stand upon the earth.
^{Verse 26}And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God,
^{Verse 27}whom I will see for myself,
and whom my own eyes will behold,
and not another.
My heart grows faint within me.
^{Verse 28}If you say, ‘How we will pursue him,
since the root of the trouble is found in him!’
^{Verse 29}Fear the sword yourselves,
for wrath brings the punishment by the sword,
so that you may know
that there is judgment.”