Job 19:1-22 ▼

1 And Job answers and says:

2 “Until when do you afflict my soul, || And bruise me with words?

3 These ten times you put me to shame, you do not blush. You make yourselves strange to me—

4 And also—truly, I have erred, || My error remains with me.

5 If, truly, you magnify yourselves over me, || And decide my reproach against me;

6 Know now, that God turned me upside down, || And has set around His net against me,

7 Behold, I cry out—violence, and am not answered, I cry aloud, and there is no judgment.

8 He hedged up my way, and I do not pass over, || And He places darkness on my paths.

9 He has stripped my honor from off me, || And He turns the crown from my head.

10 He breaks me down all around, and I go, || And removes my hope like a tree.

11 And He kindles His anger against me, || And reckons me to Him as His adversaries.

12 His troops come in together, || And they raise up their way against me, || And encamp around my tent.

13 He has put my brothers far off from me, || And my acquaintances have surely been estranged from me.

14 My neighbors have ceased || And my familiar friends have forgotten me,

15 Sojourners of my house and my maids, || Reckon me for a stranger; I have been an alien in their eyes.

16 I have called to my servant, || And he does not answer, || With my mouth I make supplication to him.

17 My spirit is strange to my wife, || And my favors to the sons of my [mother’s] womb.

18 Also sucklings have despised me, I rise, and they speak against me.

19 All the men of my counsel detest me, || And those I have loved, || Have been turned against me.

20 To my skin and to my flesh || My bone has cleaved, || And I deliver myself with the skin of my teeth.

21 Pity me, pity me, you my friends, || For the hand of God has struck against me.

22 Why do you pursue me as God? And are not satisfied with my flesh?