Job 19

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Then Job answered:

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“How long will you torment me and crush me with your words?

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Ten times now you have reproached me; you shamelessly mistreat me.

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Even if I have truly gone astray, my error concerns me alone.

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If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my disgrace against me,

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then understand that it is God who has wronged me and drawn His net around me.

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Though I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice.

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He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; He has veiled my paths with darkness.

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He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.

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He tears me down on every side until I am gone; He uproots my hope like a tree.

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His anger burns against me, and He counts me among His enemies.

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His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and encamp around my tent.

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He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.

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My kinsmen have failed me, and my friends have forgotten me.

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My guests and maidservants count me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight.

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I call for my servant, but he does not answer, though I implore him with my own mouth.

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My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.

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Even little boys scorn me; when I appear, they deride me.

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All my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.

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My skin and flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

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Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.

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Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?

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I wish that my words were recorded and inscribed in a book,

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by an iron stylus on lead, or chiseled in stone forever.

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But I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth.

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Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.

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I will see Him for myself; my eyes will behold Him, and not as a stranger. How my heart yearns within me!

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If you say, ‘Let us persecute him, since the root of the matter lies with him,’

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then you should fear the sword yourselves, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”