VerseAI

NIV

Job 19

  1. 1<pb/>Then Job replied:
  2. 2<pb/><t>“How long will you torment me</t> <t>and crush me with words?</t>
  3. 3<t>Ten times now you have reproached me;</t> <t>shamelessly you attack me.</t>
  4. 4<t>If it is true that I have gone astray,</t> <t>my error remains my concern alone.</t>
  5. 5<t>If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me</t> <t>and use my humiliation against me,</t>
  6. 6<t>then know that God has wronged me</t> <t>and drawn his net around me. <pb/></t>
  7. 7<t>“Though I cry, ‘Violence!’ I get no response;</t> <t>though I call for help, there is no justice.</t>
  8. 8<t>He has blocked my way so I cannot pass;</t> <t>he has shrouded my paths in darkness.</t>
  9. 9<t>He has stripped me of my honor</t> <t>and removed the crown from my head.</t>
  10. 10<t>He tears me down on every side till I am gone;</t> <t>he uproots my hope like a tree.</t>
  11. 11<t>His anger burns against me;</t> <t>he counts me among his enemies.</t>
  12. 12<t>His troops advance in force;</t> <t>they build a siege ramp against me</t> <t>and encamp around my tent. <pb/></t>
  13. 13<t>“He has alienated my family from me;</t> <t>my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.</t>
  14. 14<t>My relatives have gone away;</t> <t>my closest friends have forgotten me.</t>
  15. 15<t>My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner;</t> <t>they look on me as on a stranger.</t>
  16. 16<t>I summon my servant, but he does not answer,</t> <t>though I beg him with my own mouth.</t>
  17. 17<t>My breath is offensive to my wife;</t> <t>I am loathsome to my own family.</t>
  18. 18<t>Even the little boys scorn me;</t> <t>when I appear, they ridicule me.</t>
  19. 19<t>All my intimate friends detest me;</t> <t>those I love have turned against me.</t>
  20. 20<t>I am nothing but skin and bones;</t> <t>I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.<f>[24]</f> <pb/></t>
  21. 21<t>“Have pity on me, my friends, have pity,</t> <t>for the hand of God has struck me.</t>
  22. 22<t>Why do you pursue me as God does?</t> <t>Will you never get enough of my flesh? <pb/></t>
  23. 23<t>“Oh, that my words were recorded,</t> <t>that they were written on a scroll,</t>
  24. 24<t>that they were inscribed with an iron tool on<f>[25]</f> lead,</t> <t>or engraved in rock forever!</t>
  25. 25<t>I know that my redeemer<f>[26]</f> lives,</t> <t>and that in the end he will stand on the earth.<f>[27]</f></t>
  26. 26<t>And after my skin has been destroyed,</t> <t>yet<f>[28]</f> in<f>[29]</f> my flesh I will see God;</t>
  27. 27<t>I myself will see him</t> <t>with my own eyes—I, and not another.</t> <t>How my heart yearns within me! <pb/></t>
  28. 28<t>“If you say, ‘How we will hound him,</t> <t>since the root of the trouble lies in him,<f>[30]</f>’</t>
  29. 29<t>you should fear the sword yourselves;</t> <t>for wrath will bring punishment by the sword,</t> <t>and then you will know that there is judgment.<f>[31]</f>”</t>