Job 19-20

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

² “How long will you torment me
    and break me in pieces with words?
³ These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
    are you not ashamed to wrong me?
⁴ And even if it is true that I have erred,
    my error remains with me.^(A)
5 If indeed you magnify yourselves against me
    and make my humiliation an argument against me,^(B)
6 know then that God has put me in the wrong
    and closed his net around me.^(C)
7 Even when I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I am not answered;
    I call aloud, but there is no justice.^(D)
8 He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,
    and he has set darkness upon my paths.^(E)
9 He has stripped my glory from me
    and taken the crown from my head.^(F)
10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone;
    he has uprooted my hope like a tree.^(G)
11 He has kindled his wrath against me
    and counts me as his adversary.^(H)
12 His troops come on together;
    they have thrown up siegeworks^[a] against me
    and encamp around my tent.^(I)

¹³ “He has put my family far from me,
    and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
¹⁴ My relatives and my close friends have failed me;
¹⁵     the guests in my house have forgotten me;
my female servants count me as a stranger;
    I have become an alien in their eyes.^(J)
16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
    I must myself plead with him.
¹⁷ My breath is repulsive to my wife;
    I am loathsome to my own family.
¹⁸ Even young children despise me;
    when I rise, they talk against me.^(K)
19 All my intimate friends abhor me,
    and those whom I love have turned against me.^(L)
20 My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
    and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.^(M)
21 Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
    for the hand of God has touched me!^(N)
22 Why do you, like God, pursue me,
    never satisfied with my flesh?^(O)

²³ “O that my words were written down!
    O that they were inscribed in a book!^(P)
24 O that with an iron pen and with lead
    they were engraved on a rock forever!^(Q)
25 For I know that my vindicator^[b] lives
    and that in the end he will stand upon the earth;^(R)
26 and after my skin has been destroyed,
    then in my flesh I shall see God,^(S)
27 whom I shall see on my side,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
    My heart faints within me!^(T)
28 If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’
    and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him,’^(U)
29 be afraid of the sword,
    for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
    so that you may know there is a judgment.”^(V)

² “Listen! My thoughts urge me to answer
    because of the agitation within me.
³ I hear censure that insults me,
    and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.^(W)
4 Do you not know this from of old,
    ever since mortals were placed on earth,^(X)
5 that the exulting of the wicked is short
    and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?^(Y)
6 Even though they mount up high as the heavens
    and their head reaches to the clouds,^(Z)
7 they will perish forever like their own dung;
    those who have seen them will say, ‘Where are they?’
⁸ They will fly away like a dream and not be found;
    they will be chased away like a vision of the night.^(AA)
9 The eye that saw them will see them no more,
    nor will their place behold them any longer.^(AB)
10 Their children will seek the favor of the poor,
    and their hands will give back their wealth.^(AC)
11 Their bodies, once full of youth,
    will lie down in the dust with them.^(AD)

¹² “Though wickedness is sweet in their mouth,
    though they hide it under their tongues,^(AE)
13 though they are loath to let it go
    and hold it in their mouths,
¹⁴ yet their food is turned in their stomachs;
    it is the venom of asps within them.
¹⁵ They swallow down riches and vomit them up again;
    God casts them out of their bellies.
¹⁶ They will suck the poison of asps;
    the tongue of a viper will kill them.^(AF)
17 They will not look on the rivers,
    the streams flowing with honey and curds.^(AG)
18 They will give back the fruit of their toil
    and will not swallow it down;
from the profit of their trading
    they will get no enjoyment.^(AH)
19 For they have crushed and abandoned the poor;
    they have seized a house that they did not build.^(AI)

²⁰ “For they knew no quiet in their bellies;
    in their greed they let nothing escape.^(AJ)
21 There was nothing left after they had eaten;
    therefore their prosperity will not endure.^(AK)
22 In full sufficiency they will be in distress;
    all the force of misery will come upon them.
²³ To fill their belly to the full,
    God^[c] will send his fierce anger into them
    and rain it upon them as their food.^(AL)
24 They will flee from an iron weapon;
    a bronze arrow will strike them through.^(AM)
25 It is drawn forth and comes out of their body,
    and the glittering point comes out of their gall;
    terrors come upon them.^(AN)
26 Utter darkness is laid up for their treasures;
    a fire fanned by no one will devour them;
    what is left in their tent will be consumed.^(AO)
27 The heavens will reveal their iniquity,
    and the earth will rise up against them.^(AP)
28 The possessions of their house will be carried away,
    dragged off in the day of God’s^[d] wrath.^(AQ)
29 This is the portion of the wicked from God,
    the heritage decreed for them by God.”^(AR)