Job 19 - ESV Bible - Then Job answered and said: "How long will you...

1 Then Job answered and said:

2 "How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?

3 These ¹ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?

4 And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

5 If indeed you ²magnify yourselves against me and make my disgrace an argument against me,

6 know then that God has ³put me in the wrong and closed his net about me.

7 Behold, I ⁴cry out, 'Violence!' but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice.

8 He has ⁵walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths.

9 He has ⁶stripped from me my glory and taken the ⁷crown from my head.

10 He breaks me down on every side, and I ⁸am gone, and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.

11 He has kindled his wrath against me and ⁹counts me as his adversary.

12 His ¹⁰troops come on together; they have ¹¹cast up their siege ramp^a against me and encamp around my tent.

13 "He has put my ¹²brothers far from me, and ¹³those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.

14 My relatives ¹⁴have failed me, my close ¹⁵friends have forgotten me.

15 The guests ¹⁶in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.

17 My breath is strange to my ¹⁷wife, and I am a stench to the children of ¹⁸my own mother.

18 Even young ¹⁹children despise me; when I rise they talk against me.

19 All my ²⁰intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me.

20 My ²¹bones stick to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

21 Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has ²²touched me!

22 Why do you, like God, ²³pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

23 "Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were ²⁴inscribed in a book!

24 Oh that with an iron ²⁵pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!

25 For I ²⁶know that my ²⁷Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the ²⁸earth.^b

26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in^c my flesh I shall ²⁹see God,

27 whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not ³⁰another. My heart ³¹faints within me!

28 If you say, 'How we will ³²pursue him!' and, 'The root of the matter is found in him,'

29 be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is ³³a judgment."

Job 19 ESV