Job’s Reply to Bildad
19:1 Then Job answered:
19:2 “How long will you torment me
and crush me with your words?
19:3 These ten times you have been reproaching me;
you are not ashamed to attack me!
19:4 But even if it were true that I have erred,
my error remains solely my concern!
19:5 If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me
and plead my disgrace against me,
19:6 know then that God has wronged me
and encircled me with his net.
Job’s Abandonment and Affliction
19:7 “If I cry out, ‘Violence!’
I receive no answer;
I cry for help,
but there is no justice.
19:8 He has blocked my way so I cannot pass,
and has set darkness over my paths.
19:9 He has stripped me of my honor
and has taken the crown off my head.
19:10 He tears me down on every side until I perish;
he uproots my hope like one uproots a tree.
19:11 Thus his anger burns against me,
and he considers me among his enemies.
19:12 His troops advance together;
they throw up a siege ramp against me,
and they camp around my tent.
Job’s Forsaken State
19:13 “He has put my relatives far from me;
my acquaintances only turn away from me.
19:14 My kinsmen have failed me;
my friends have forgotten me.
19:15 My guests and my servant girls
consider me a stranger;
I am a foreigner in their eyes.
19:16 I summon my servant, but he does not respond,
even though I implore him with my own mouth.
19:17 My breath is repulsive to my wife;
I am loathsome to my brothers.
19:18 Even youngsters have scorned me;
when I get up, they scoff at me.
19:19 All my closest friends detest me;
and those whom I love have turned against me.
19:20 My bones stick to my skin and my flesh;
I have escaped alive with only the skin of my teeth.
19:21 Have pity on me, my friends, have pity on me,
for the hand of God has struck me.
19:22 Why do you pursue me like God does?
Will you never be satiated with my flesh?
Job’s Assurance of Vindication
19:23 “O that my words were written down,
O that they were written on a scroll,
19:24 that with an iron chisel and with lead
they were engraved in a rock forever!
19:25 As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that as the last
he will stand upon the earth.
19:26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God,
19:27 whom I will see for myself,
and whom my own eyes will behold,
and not another.
My heart grows faint within me.
19:28 If you say, ‘How we will pursue him,
since the root of the trouble is found in him!’
19:29 Fear the sword yourselves,
for wrath brings the punishment by the sword,
so that you may know
that there is judgment.”